In the above example, the point spread is 5.5-a number given to both teams, with one team (Portland) being a 5.5-point underdog and the other team (Golden State) being a 5.5-point favorite. For a bet on Portland to win, they can either win the game straight-up, but they can also lose by an amount under 5.5 points. Football Point Spreads: How They Work The theory with point spreads is that a wager on either team to win a football game is as close to a 505/50 shot as possible. You’re not actually betting on which team will win the game, you’re betting on which team will “cover the spread”.

A point spread bet is a wager in which you bet which team is going to outperform their expected performance. The sportsbook will set a line based on how well they think each team will do during the game, and then you choose which team will perform better than that set line. Point spreads are a way to keep betting lines close even for a lopsided matchup.

If you've never set foot in an actual sportsbook before or logged into an online sportsbook, the chances of you getting overwhelmed when you actually do are very high. In an actual Las Vegas sportsbook, there is typically a lot of commotion, and the odds and lines are displayed on a massive digital board for everyone to see. When a novice sports bettor looks at the massive digital signage, they will see a bunch of numbers, both positive and negative, some two digits, some three digits. They also won't have a clue what any of it means. The same can be said for the online sportsbooks. It essentially looks like a massive spreadsheet with negative and positive numbers beside each teams' name.

How the Point Spread Works

The easiest way for me to describe what all these numbers mean to you is to define it as point spread betting . Point spread betting is the most popular way to bet on the NFL and NBA, and it is a way for a sportsbook to generate betting interest on both sides.

When two teams square up for a matchup, whether that be on the gridiron or on the basketball court, one team is typically better than the other (for whatever reason you want to believe). Since sportsbooks are in the business of making money, they tag the better team with a point spread, thus making them the 'favorites' to win that specific game. Normally, the favorite has a few favorable factors working for them like playing at home or being well rested or playing a revenge game against a team that previously beat them. Every factor counts in the world of betting, and it's up to you to decide if the 'favorite' can, in fact, cover the point spread.

If sports betting were an easy hobby, we would take the better team (playing at home) every single time and collect our winnings. But sportsbook adjust and price the money line astronomically high (depending on how much better they are than their opponent), and it simply is not worth it to lay that kind of juice.

Hypothetical Point Spread Scenario

Let's use the 2019 Super Bowl matchup between New England and Los Angeles as an example.

Moments before kickoff, sportsbooks were sitting with New England -2.5 or Los Angeles +2.5. This is what it would look like online:

Los Angeles +2.5 (-110)
New England -2.5 (-110)

This is what it would look like in a Las Vegas sportsbook:

501. New England Patriots -2.5 (-110)

502. Los Angeles Rams +2.5 (-110)

Using the example above, the linemakers have determined that the New England Patriots are two-and-a-half-point favorites over the Los Angeles Rams. The favorite team can also be referred to as the chalk . The favorite will always be represented by a negative (-) number, while the underdog will always be represented by a positive (+) number.

Based on the line above and which team you decide to bet on, the Patriots must win by three or more points in order for those with a Patriots (-2.5) ticket to be declared a winner. As long as the Patriots win by three or more points, the final score itself does not matter. A 3-0 win is just as much a winner as a 34-31 win.

However, if the Patriots were to win the game by two points or less, then all Patriots backers can toss their tickets in the trash. A 30-28 or 21-20 Patriots win would cash the tickets with Los Angeles +2.5 on them. A Rams outright win as two-and-a-half-point underdogs would also do the same.

The same rules apply to the NBA as well. The favorite must win by more than the line dictates, while the underdog must stay within the number or win the game outright.

Standard Point Spread Line

The standard price to pay when betting on point spreads is (-110). This is the sportsbooks way of ensuring a profit no matter which side covers the spread. The extra 10 cents is also known as the 'juice' or 'vig' . Paying the extra 10-cents is like paying a tax or commission to the sportsbook for brokering the bet.

The -110 line means that in order for you to profit $100, you must wager $110. Some sportsbook offer something called 'reduced juice' , which means that you can still profit $100 but the risk is a few dollars less.

For example, if you see reduced lines such as -7.5 (-105), that means that you must risk $105 dollars in order to profit $100. If you see -7.5 (-102) then you must bet $102 in order to profit $100. It may not seem like a big deal at the time, but saving a few bucks each time over the course of the season can really help your bankroll.

Which brings me to my next point. If you are serious about getting into sports betting, it is vital to have more than one sportsbook to make a wager at. Shopping around for the best lines will help your bankroll, and you will be able to turn a bigger profit. If you see a pair of sneakers for $110 at one store, and the exact same pair is $102.99 at another store - which store are you buying them from?

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There are several different types of football wager you can place,
and two of them are significantly more popular than the others.
The most popular of all is the point spread wager, followed by
the totals wager. In this article, we’re focusing on the point
spread.

Before you continue reading, if you’re interested, we have put together a short video to help you better understand point spreads.

If you have any interest at all in betting on football, then you
really should know how to bet the point spread effectively. It’s not
necessarily the “best” type of wager in terms of the potential for
winning money, but it’s relatively simple and does present some
profitable opportunities if you know what you’re doing.

On this page we teach you the basics of betting football point spreads. We explain how they work, and why
they’re so popular. We also explain the challenges involved in making money from them. Finally, we offer
some tips and strategy advice for placing wagers of this type.

How To Win A Point Spread Bet

Football Point Spreads: How They Work

The theory with point spreads is that a wager on either team to win a football game is as close to a 505/50
shot as possible. You’re not actually betting on which team will win the game, you’re betting on which team
will “cover the spread”. The favorite has to win by at least a certain number of points for a wager on them to
be successful, and the underdog has to lose by less than the same number of points for a wager on them to
be successful.

Another way to view it is that, for the purposes of the betting, the favorite has points deducted from their
score and the underdog has points added to their final score. The number of points varies, depending on the
gap in quality between two teams. If one team is much stronger than the other, the number of points can be
quite high (a big spread). If the two teams are more evenly matched, the number of points is low (a small
spread).

Here’s an example of a point spread that a bookmaker or betting site might offer for a football game
between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Bronco.

The +6 for the Steelers means that they’ll have six points effectively added to their score. They’re the
underdog here. The -6 for the Broncos means that they’ll have six points effectively deducted from their
score, as they’re the favorite. You can choose to bet on the Steelers with their points advantage, or on the
Broncos with their points deduction. The following outcomes are possible.

• A wager on the Steelers pays out if they win the game, or lose by less than six points
• A wager on the Steelers loses if they lose by more than six points
• A wager on the Broncos pays out if the win the game by more than six points
• A wager on the Broncos loses if they lose the game, or win by less than six points
• All wagers would push (stake gets returned) if the Broncos win by exactly six points

That, in essence, is all there is to betting football point spreads. All successful wagers are paid out at the
relevant odds, which are typically -110. The odds can vary, but they’re almost always fairly close to even
money. One further thing we should mention is that spreads will often include half a point. So, for example,
you might see a team at +6.5. This makes a push impossible.

Why Football Point Spreads Are Popular

It’s difficult to say for sure why point spreads are so popular, but there are probably a number of reasons. We
suspect that the following are the most relevant for the majority of bettors.

1. Betting on even money propositions is appealing
2. Point spreads are very simple
3. Point spreads make betting on “lopsided” games more interesting
4. The perception is that it’s easy to make money from point spreads

The first reason listed here applies primarily to recreational bettors. Those who are serious about their
betting don’t really care what the odds are per se, they are primarily concerned with whether value exists or
not. And value can exist in both heavy favorites and complete outsiders in the right circumstances. For those
that bet just for fun, though, the concept of value is largely an irrelevance. They just want to know that they
have a fair chance of winning their wagers, and that’s exactly what point spreads offer. Even if you just picked
teams at random you could expect to win close to 50% of your wagers over the long run.

The second reason is also an appealing one for recreational bettors. Although most of them do want to win
money, of course, they’re not generally bothered about having to think too much about their betting. It’s all
about the fun, and so wagers that are nice and simple are ideal for them. Point spreads are an easy way to
throw a few bucks on a game, without having to put in a great deal of effort.

Making lopsided games more interesting is a clear advantage of the point spread, to all types of bettors.
Without this type of wager, there would rarely be much fun or value in betting on games where there is a
very clear favorite. Backing the favorite would offer very low odds, to the extent that it probably wouldn’t be
worth it, and the underdog would be so unlikely to win that there’d be no point in backing them either.

The final reason mentioned here is actually not a good reason to bet football point spreads at all. Many
people do believe it’s a relatively easy way to make money, but the reality is that it is not. We’ll now explain
why.

The Challenge of Football Point Spreads

Seeing as we’ve said that you have a roughly 50% chance of winning a point spread wager even if picking a
team at random, you could be forgiven for thinking that with even a little bit of knowledge you should be able
to make money from this type of wager. You may well be able to, but it’s certainly not easy. There are two
main reasons for this.

1. Bookmakers charge vig
2. Bookmakers are very good at what they do

If you’re not familiar with vig, please read our article on how bookmakers make money. Very briefly though,
vig is basically a commission that bookmakers charge. It’s effectively built into the odds, which is why point
spread wagers typically are at odds of around -110. You’ve got to risk $110 to win $100, which means you
have to win more than half of your wagers just to break even.

And winning more than your half of your wagers is tough, because the bookmakers are generally very
accurate when setting their lines. The spreads they publish are consistently very close to reflecting what
actually happens in games. This makes it very difficult to regularly predict which team is going to cover the
spread in a game.It’s certainly rare that you’ll see games where the outcome is obvious enough that you can
genuinely state with real confidence that one or the other team is going to cover.

Tips & Strategy Advice

There is an argument to say that there is little strategy involved in betting football point spreads these days.
This is primarily because of what we’ve outlined above, in that the lines are set so tightly by bookmakers that
football point spreads are basically coin flips. However, our view is that they can be profitable with the right
approach.

For one thing, bookmakers are not infallible. Although they’re very good at what they do, they still get it
wrong from time to time. And, even when they don’t, it’s still possible to get a high enough win percentage to
effectively “beat the vig”. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

We round off this article with some tips and strategy advice that may help you to get better results when
betting football point spreads.

Learn how to handicap football games

This advice applies to virtually any form of football betting really. If you’re going to make money, then you
need to need to understand what’s involved in handicapping football games.A lot of bettors don’t bother to
learn about handicapping, often simply because they believe it’s really complicated. It’s not. There are some
complicated aspects to it, yes, but the fundamental concept is relatively straightforward.

In fact, there’s a very good chance that you’re already handicapping games without even realizing it.
Handicapping doesn’t have to involve using amazingly advanced scientific systems, it can be as simple as
taking into account a few factors that are likely to affect the outcome of a game and then working out where
the value lies. There’s obviously a bit more to it than that, but that’s basically what it’s about.

Please take the time to read our article explaining how to handicap football. We can almost guarantee
that it will teach you at least some aspects of football betting that you’re not aware of.

Ignore a team’s ATS record

Statistics can be very valuable when betting football spreads. There are certain statistics in particular that
canreally help you compare two teams and make informed judgements about how they are likely to perform
against each other. However, there are other stats that are relatively useless. This doesn’t stop some bettors
relying on them though.

One such stat is a team’s ATS (against the spread) record. This basically refers to a team’s performance
against the lines set by the bookmakers, rather than their actual results. Let’s look at some hypothetical data
to explain this further. Here’s a team’s results of the first six games of the regular season, along with their
spread for each of those games.

In the first game, the team was -3 on the spread, so technically “should” have won by three points. It lost, so
it failed to cover the spread. It won the next game, but only by five points when it was -6 on the spread. So,
again, it failed to cover the spread. In the following game it won by 12 when -7 on the spread, so it did cover
the spread here. In the following three games it failed to cover the spread again, despite winning two of them.

Now, a lot of bettors would read a lot into this. The team has only covered the spread once in six games,
despite a record of 4-2 on the field. The seemingly obvious conclusion here is that backing this team on the
spread is a bad idea. This is not necessarily true though, for one simple reason.

That’s right. The ATS data for a team is one of those instances where the numbers really do lie. The fact that
a team has been failing to cover the spread for the majority of its games means absolutely nothing in terms
of how likely it is cover to the spread in the future.

You’ll hear advice contrary to this, but please ignore it. Relying on ATS data to make future predictions is a
big mistake.

Don’t bet on every game

There is pretty much a 0% chance that you’ll be able to maintain a good win rate if you bet the spreads on
every single football game. Being selective is absolutely vital if you want to win consistently. The more games
you bet on, the harder you’ll find it to maintain a high enough win percentage. And your win percentage is
everything when it comes to betting football spreads. As we’ve already stated, you’ll mostly be betting at
around -110 and will need to win above 50% of your picks just to overcome the vig.

Trying to win a ton of bets each and every week is a recipe for failure. You need to be patient and wait for
the right opportunities. Unless you are an absolute genius (in which case you don’t need our help anyway),
at best you’ll find just a handful of games where there’s a good reason to bet the spread. There will likely be
some weeks where there are no good spots at all, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with saving your
money and waiting for better opportunities.

There are certain types of games that you should generally try to avoid too. These are as follows.

• Games between very closely matched opponents
• Games involving “hyped” teams or especially popular teams
• Games with double digit spreads (i.e. a spread of 10 or more)

Please note that we’re not saying you should NEVER bet the spread in games falling into the above
categories. Just be cautious of them. Games between very closely matched opponents are notoriously difficult
to predict, and games involving hyped or popular teams often have very misleading lines. Games with
double digit spreads are risky because there’s always a chance that the favorite will coast through a game
once they’ve all but secured the win. They may be easily capable of winning by ten or more points, but that
doesn’t mean they’re going to give it their all to do so.

Think outside the NFL

Many bettors focus solely on the NFL, and this is basically making things a lot harder than they need to be.
Finding value on NFL games is very difficult, due to the tight lines mentioned earlier, and when there is value
it doesn’t tend to last very long. This is because there are so many people looking for the right spots. As soon
as a bookmaker or betting publishes an attractive line, sharp bettors will be on it almost immediately. The
line will then be moved accordingly, and the value will disappear.

There is regularly more value to be had in college football and even the Canadian Football League, as the
bookmakers are not generally quite as expert on those games. This means there’s more opportunities to
find good spots. The fact that there are less people betting also means that those good spots don’t tend to
disappear quite so quickly.

Please note that we’re not saying it’s easy to win money betting on college football and the CFL. We’re just
saying that there’s certainly an argument that it’s not as hard as the NFL. You’ll need to make sure you know
as much as possible about the relevant teams and players though. That’s where you can potentially gain an
edge over the bookmakers.

Consider betting teasers

Many bettors focus solely on the NFL, and this is basically making things a lot harder than they need to be.
Finding value on NFL games is very difficult, due to the tight lines mentioned earlier, and when there is value
it doesn’t tend to last very long. This is because there are so many people looking for the right spots. As soon
as a bookmaker or betting publishes an attractive line, sharp bettors will be on it almost immediately. The
line will then be moved accordingly, and the value will disappear.

There is regularly more value to be had in college football and even the Canadian Football League, as the
bookmakers are not generally quite as expert on those games. This means there’s more opportunities to
find good spots. The fact that there are less people betting also means that those good spots don’t tend to
disappear quite so quickly.

You can find more detailed strategy advice for this type of wager in our articles on NFL teasers and college
football teasers.

How Does A Point Spread Bet Work

Shop around

Many bettors focus solely on the NFL, and this is basically making things a lot harder than they need to be.
Finding value on NFL games is very difficult, due to the tight lines mentioned earlier, and when there is value
it doesn’t tend to last very long. This is because there are so many people looking for the right spots. As soon
as a bookmaker or betting publishes an attractive line, sharp bettors will be on it almost immediately. The
line will then be moved accordingly, and the value will disappear.

How To Bet A Spread

There is regularly more value to be had in college football and even the Canadian Football League, as the
bookmakers are not generally quite as expert on those games. This means there’s more opportunities to
find good spots. The fact that there are less people betting also means that those good spots don’t tend to
disappear quite so quickly.