Best NFL Betting Sites 2023
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NFL Betting
NFL betting can be a great way to increase the fun you have. Don’t know where to begin? Let us help you. Learn how to bet on NFL through our guide.
The history of sport is long and complex. Sports have existed throughout human history for a wide variety of functions. These days it is seen mostly as a form of entertainment, but those familiar with the subject understand that it has been and continues to be a powerful social and political tool as well.
That isn’t the area of investigation for today’s guide, though. We would first like to speak of the sport’s history, as we mentioned earlier, and flag post the various key moments in its development. Since it is a multi-billion dollar industry that props up several other billion-dollar industries, it is important to have this context before moving forward. Following this discussion, we will speak about how to bet on NFL games in a detailed fashion.
If one were to travel back into the past and decide to go to a sports event, one would certainly see many similarities. One of the similarities on display would certainly be the passion with which the crowd supports the players or teams. Sports have always been one of the most engaging sources of entertainment out there.
While the underlying raw materials are the same i.e., the crowd, the teams, the existence of rules and objectives, sports have come a long way since those days. Let’s take a look at what exactly brought us here.
Making Sports Accessible
First of all, you need to understand that the nature of the sports industry is always changing to accommodate changing viewer tastes. Rules of the game are constantly being reviewed by the concerned authorities to keep any given sport as relevant as possible.
As such, the sports industry only a few decades ago and the sports industry today are completely different animals. Changing viewer habits are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our analysis. We must look deeper to find out what has driven these changes.
In our minds, there have been two major developments over the past few decades that have catapulted the popularity of sports to the stratosphere. The first has been the development of the broadcasting industry. Thanks to the invention of the television, the potential to reach audiences worldwide increased drastically.
This would not have been realized were it not for the broadcasting infrastructure provided by several of the world’s biggest media companies. The media companies made sports a more profitable venture by allowing games to reach the general public at an appropriate cost.
With easy access to matches, the casual viewer was born. Such viewers would not have previously put in the leg work to support a team or follow a sport. However, given that it was available from the comfort of their living room, there was little preventing them from starting. The enthralling nature of sports did the rest of the work.
Social Media’s Impact
The second stage in the development of sports was the advent of the internet. This again made information about the games more readily available but would not have been sufficient on its own. It was only when smartphones and social media arrived on the scene that things really began to take off.
The benefit of social media was that sports tribalism, the driving force behind fan culture, moved to an online space. Here ordinary people like us could spend hours discussing every minute detail about our favorite sports teams and players.
This was made even more convenient by the fact that we could have all these discussions using a device we can easily carry in our pockets. Once again, the barriers that would have existed just a few decades ago came crashing down, and sports became a truly accessible entertainment source.
NFL Sports Betting
In our world today, nothing exists in isolation. Sport is no different in this regard as it sustains several industries simply by existing. The success of the sports industry means the success of these adjacent industries.
One such industry is the sports betting industry. Sports betting is the general theme of our discussion today. Our conversation will specifically revolve around betting on NFL games but first more on sports betting in general.
Sports betting has been around for as long as sports themselves. The popularity of sports betting has always been a factor of the popularity of sports. This makes sense since the people interested in sports betting will naturally come from the larger population of sports fans.
Just as the sports industry has grown in popularity and stature over the years, so has the sports betting industry. The sports betting industry always held a certain appeal for the average sports fan, yet many avoided any participation in it. This was largely due to the reputation that was associated with the sports betting world.
The Digital Transformation
Mainstream media such as books and movies offer several examples of what society believed the sports betting industry to be all about. Images of backalley dealings, police raids, and collection agents recovering money from unsuspecting individuals through gratuitous violence will long live in the public imagination.
The same factors that led to the increase in popularity of sports played a huge role in normalizing sports betting. The first way in which this occurred was that the size of the market for sports betting began to rise as the audience for sports in general rose. The second factors were once again smartphones and the internet.
Thanks to these devices we carry around everywhere, the need to interact with unsavoury individuals dropped to zero. You didn’t need to know a bookie or deal with any people at all. Everything was moved online and was far more professional than it had ever been.
This is the situation we find ourselves in today. Sports betting is now an immensely popular and profitable endeavour. The increase in the number of people interested in sports betting, particularly NFL betting, has resulted in the need for more information on the subject.
This is the purpose of our guide today. We will take you through the process of how to bet on NFL games, explaining each and every step required to do so in vivid detail. Our hope is that you’ll have the required information to conduct your betting with the confidence of a pro. Read on to learn more!
How to Bet on NFL
The NFL is an incredibly popular sport, albeit one that is only played in the United States. The U.S. is a strange country in this respect as the three major sports popular here are not highly regarded elsewhere. We are, of course, referring to football, basketball, and baseball.
Basketball is at least an Olympic sport; the other two don’t even have that much to brag about. It should be noted that despite being an Olympic sport, basketball enjoys very little success as a sport outside the United States.
Despite not drawing the huge global audience that some other sports like soccer command, the NFL is a huge sports league in its own right within the United States. With a population of almost 350 million people, it isn’t a surprise that the NFL isn’t all that fussed about drawing an international audience.
If you’re new to the sports betting world and would like to get started with NFL betting, we’ve got a step-by-step guide you can follow below. We’ve tried our best to provide the highest quality information so that you don’t need to review any other source on the matter. We hope that the information provided meets your needs and helps you to fulfill your greatest betting ambitions.
Read on to find out more!
Step 1: Browse Through Sportsbook Options
The first step to any bettor’s journey is selecting a sportsbook. You may be wondering at this point what a sportsbook is. Don’t worry, we’ll explain. Here comes another history lesson, sorry! A sportsbook is not a new concept invented by the sports betting industry today. It has been around as long as the sports betting industry has.
This is the reason we said that every bettor’s journey will always inevitably begin with a sportsbook. A sportsbook is simply the name given to a journal in which the bookie (remember those?) used to write down all the wagers available to the audience. If one wished to make a bet, they would simply locate the bookie, view their sportsbook, browse through the various wagers and associated betting odds and then pay to make a bet.
If you wish to bet on NFL games today, you’ll have to follow a similar process. The only difference is that bookies are all but extinct at this point. Online sportsbooks have replaced them. So, you will naturally need to find a sportsbook where you can find NFL bets and NFL odds.
How do you go about selecting a sportsbook, though? Once again, we’re happy to help. We understand that as a novice, it is very difficult to make any decision with complete confidence, let alone a decision that has financial implications.
A lot goes into selecting a suitable sportsbook. You need to be aware of the history of the sportsbook, the variety and quality of bonuses it offers, the quality of odds, betting markets, and its suitability for your goals.
If you’re new to the betting scene, this process can seem a bit tedious and confusing. Lucky for you, we’ve already done all the grunt work for you. We have an in-house team of experts that review some of the most popular sportsbooks out there. We rank each sportsbook we review on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the mentioned factors and much more.
We also provide insight and detailed analysis to support our final opinion. As such, if you rely on our sportsbook reviews, you can rest assured that you are building a solid foundation for your betting career. Let’s move on to step 2 in our process.
Step 2: Depositing Payment
Not that anyone needed reminding (hopefully), but you need to have money in your virtual account to be able to place the bets you wish to make. This can be the most straightforward process or the most painful one depending on the level of due diligence you conducted.
Look, it’s simple, really. We all chase convenience, right? When it comes to making transactions, convenience is a huge factor in our ultimate decision. Each sportsbook offers various options in this department because they want the process to be as easy for you as possible.
However, if you don’t do proper research prior to selecting a sportsbook, it may cause you undue pain. This is because each transaction option offers various pros and cons. For most people, for instance, credit cards are the most convenient option. However, most platforms will charge you a fairly high service charge on these.
If you don’t want to pay for these, you may have to choose something less convenient. We always recommend that our readers use cryptocurrency when dealing with online sports betting platforms to bet on NFL games.
This method of payment offers advantages that other transaction methods do not. Chief among them are speed and cost. Crypto deposits don’t carry any extra charges on almost every sportsbook out there. The payments on this method are also faster than any other option, usually taking less than 15 minutes.
The final benefit that we cannot go on without mentioning is that crypto deposits are heavily incentivized by almost every sportsbook. As a result, you normally get bonuses for using this method of payment. Let’s move on to the next step in our NFL betting journey.
Step 3: Placing your Bet
We’ve finally arrived at the moment of truth. You’ve joined a sportsbook, paid the money and are eager to make your bet. You navigate merrily to the NFL bets section and then you see a problem that we saw coming.
Betting is all about technical jargon and numbers. We haven’t really discussed any of that yet, so the expectation is that you are now stuck. As always, we’ve got you covered, so don’t worry about a thing. Our ability to place NFL bets depends on two things. Firstly, understanding the types of bets available and secondly, knowing how to read NFL odds.
As such, we will now discuss both of these in more detail.
Step 4: Understanding the Types of NFL Bets
You have several options available to you when betting on NFL. Here are some of the most popular types of NFL bets that you can make.
Spread Bets
The most popular betting type in the NFL spread bets. These are also referred to as point spreads. In terms of complexity spread, bets aren’t the simplest bets around, but if you understand the underlying concept, they can be relatively straightforward.
Today we’ll look at what spread bets are and how you can read NFL odds for point spreads. The origin of spread bets lies in a problem that is common to all sports. It is like every competition that there must be a winner and a loser. In a league of several teams, there will be clear separations in quality from top to bottom.
No league is completely egalitarian, no matter how hard the authorities try to make it so. Due to this, the top teams will develop a significant advantage over the bottom NFL teams over a long enough period. What constitutes a top team is normally driven by history, individual player quality, resources available and the like.
If you understand that there will always be teams that are simply better than the opposition, you’ll understand the need for point spreads. Sportsbooks cannot really influence the gulf in quality between two sides during a matchup.
Whenever there is a team with a clear advantage over their opponents, the game loses a lot of the excitement that it should normally have. This also makes sports betting a rather dull and tepid affair. The sports betting department is something that sportsbooks do have control over.
To add the excitement to the match, sportsbooks offer point spreads. The “spread” refers to one side’s advantage over another, represented as a numerical value. Let’s take a look at what this looks like as NFL odds.
In a match between the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers, you may see the point spread represented as follows:
- New England Patriots (-6.5) vs. Green Bay Packers (+6.5)
In sports betting, positive signs highlight the underdog in a match, while negative signs highlight the favorite. The 6.5 value means that the Patriots are expected to win, and to win a spread bet, they must win by at least 7 points over the packers.
The Packers are expected to lose, but if they lose by less than 6 points or lower, you still win your spread bet. You can see how this would alleviate some of the concerns of a match, providing no excitement. Even in loss, a Packers fan may have something to celebrate!
Moneyline Bets
Whereas point spreads still require some explanation, moneyline bets normally don’t even warrant that. These are what you would call NFL bets that are characteristic of the betting world in general. Moneyline bets simply pick out a winner between the two contestants.
Though spread bets are the most popular bets in the NFL, moneyline bets are the easiest. Most people have a problem with them because they are too simple to provide any meaningful returns. This is probably why they don’t enjoy the same level of popularity as the point spread bets.
Here’s how you can read moneyline bet odds. We’ve already discussed that positive means underdog and negative means favorite so keep that in mind as you look through the example. We’re using the same teams as our previous example.
- New England Patriots (-120) vs. Green Bay Packers (+120)
In this example, you can see the New England Patriots are the favorites for the matchup. This is reflected by the negative sign next to their odds. The figure means that you would need to bet $120 on the Patriots to win $100. Similarly, you can win $120 if you bet $100 on the Green Bay Packers. Sounds simple, right? There isn’t much more to moneyline odds, so they are the simplest of NFL bets and the easiest NFL odds to read.
Totals Bets
These NFL bets are very easy to understand. Essentially it’s all there in the name. Totals means the total points scored between the two teams during any given match. In these bets, you are provided by a benchmark figure just as in point spreads. You must decide whether the total number of points scored between the two teams will be over or under this benchmark figure.
This is why totals bets are also known as over/under bets. Point spreads are also technically over/under bets. In a sportsbook, this would look something like this:
New England Patriots vs. Green Bay Packers
- Over 42.5
- Under 42.5
Just looking at it, you can see that there isn’t much to it. These were the three most popular NFL bets out there. We’ve covered other betting types in our other NFL guide.
NFL Teams
View NFL odds and bet online, securely, and easily on NFL games all season long.
Final Word
Now that you are familiar with the various NFL bets and how to read NFL odds, you should continue to the final step and place your very first bet. We hope that the information in this guide was of help to you. If you are ever confused about anything related to online betting ever again, feel free to consult one of our many guides.
NFL FAQ
Where can I bet on the NFL?
There are Offshore Sportsbook Websites listed in Online Betting Sports, and also a bettor can wager on the NFL depending on which state they are in. Different states have different sports betting laws, with some states allowing in-person betting, online betting, both, or neither.
Is it legal to bet on the NFL?
The legal status of NFL betting and all sports betting in America is decided on a state-by-state basis. Bettors should look into the legal status of football betting in their state before attempting to place any NFL wagers.
How do I bet on the NFL?
To bet on the NFL, bettors have to go to a sportsbook that is legal in their state. From there, they can look through the betting options and decide which they want to take advantage of and how much they want to risk on each one.
What is the best way to win at NFL betting?
The best way to win at NFL betting long term is to make your own betting lines and to study each team religiously, to use those items to identify market inefficiencies.
Can I bet online?
Yes, many states allow online sports betting to take place. This depends on the laws in the state that a bettor is in.
When can I bet on the NFL?
There are NFL odds available for almost the entire year. Bettors can wager on games throughout the season, along with futures and prop bets during the offseason.
