How To Decipher And Interpret Nfl Point Spreads

By Author: Groshan Fabiola
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A good understanding of football point spreads and the way they are established can give you an edge when making your NFL picks by allowing you to identify the best wager value and separate safer bets from the riskier ones. Additionally, since the sports lines are a crucial factor in determining point spread wagers, getting to know this concept is also a main prerequisite to successful sports betting as a whole.

Deciphering the line

A common football point spread bet might look like this: Team A -4, Team B +4. What this means is that if you bet on team A, in order to collect on your wager, your pick must win the game by a minimum margin of 5 points. By contrast, a win or a loss by a maximum margin of 3 points is necessary for a wager made on team B. Taking the same example as reference, the minus and plus signs indicate the favorite and the underdog, respectively.

Next, let's have a look at a common over/ under wager example. If the football total set for a game reads 41, it means the two teams in the contest must combine for a minimum of 42 points for you to collect on an over wager. If you chose ...
... to bet under the total, the two teams would need to combine for a maximum of 40 points for the wager to be a winner.

Taking the vig in consideration

The vigorish, vig, or juice refers to the commission that sportsbooks deduct from the amount you wager. If we included the vig in the previous example, then the standard NFL line would read: Team A -4 (-110), Team B +4 (-110). What this tells you is that in order to win $100, you need to invest $110, where the added $10 or 10% of the wager's value represents the vig. However, what you should know is that bookmakers only get to keep the vigorish when bettors lose.

Looking beyond the point spread

With some NFL picks, sometimes it may be better to avoid point spreads and focus instead on betting that particular team to win. In such cases, the margin of victory is irrelevant, and the bets are money line-based.

A standard example of straightforward money line-based wager might look like this: Team A -130, Team B +110, where Team A is the favorite and Team B is the underdog. To win $100 on team A, you would need to invest a total of $130, while a $100 bet laid out on team B would earn you $110.

Interpreting the spread

In sports like football and basketball, scoring statistics play a crucial role in determining the spread, so make sure you do a thorough research of past and recent NFL scores before making your NFL picks. You should also account for where the game is being played (usually, point spreads reflect the superiority of the home team through the addition of three points in football and four in basketball), and look for key player absences that could have a strong impact on the outcome of the game.

Most often, bookmakers establish the sports lines in relation to the betting action in the scene at that time or the reaction they anticipate in the sports betting community later on. In football, key numbers also have an influence on how the lines are set, and certain numbers are crucial in establishing the odds. For instance, the numbers 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13 and 14 appear regularly in football betting lines because they represent the most common score margins in NFL matches.

For more resources about Sports Lines or about NFL Picks or even about NFL Scores, please review these links.