One of the easiest ways to become a better sports bettor is to ensure that you’re always getting the best line. Various sportsbooks will sometimes price the same markets differently. These differences are typically small – five to 10 cents of juice or half a point on a spread – but they can make a tremendous impact on your bottom line. Even if you’re saving just five cents on 100 bets each year, that’s still a lot of additional money for your bankroll.
That’s where Fantasy Life’s NFL Odds Grid comes into play. The Odds Grid allows you to easily compare betting lines across four of the biggest online sportsbooks – DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and Caesars. By comparing odds across the industry, you can ensure that you’re getting the best price on each wager that you make.
The NFL Odds Grid features three separate types of wagers: spreads, moneylines, and totals. Each wager will be priced separately by each sportsbook, so just because a particular location is offering the best price on one bet doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll also have the best odds on the other bets.
Spread Bets
In the NFL, point spreads are used to try to balance the scales between two uneven teams. If the best team in the NFL is playing against the worst, it wouldn’t be particularly difficult to select which team is likely to win outright. By adding a point spread, the better team will now need to win by a certain margin of points for the bet to be a winner.
Moneyline Bets
Another way that the sportsbooks try to balance the scales is with moneyline bets. There are no point spreads in this type of wager; you simply need to pick which team you think is going to win.
However, the two teams can often be priced very differently. If you want to pick the favorite on the moneyline, they might be priced at -200. That means you would need to risk $200 to try to win just $100. If you were to bet on the underdog instead, you might then get plus odds such as +150. That means that a $100 wager would win $150 if the underdog were to successfully pull off an upset win.
Total Bets
Total bets have nothing to do with which team is going to win but rather how many total points will be scored overall in the game. You can select whether you think the two teams will combine to go “over” or “under” a listed total. Most NFL totals are set in the forties, though some games between two good offenses can have projected totals in the fifties.
Consensus Odds
Found on all three tabs (spread, moneyline, totals), the consensus odds represent the industry average for the respective game. Please note that the consensus odds are derived from all sportsbooks available, and not only the five main sportsbooks that we have chosen to display separately on the odds table.
Reading NFL odds can be a bit confusing at first. However, we have a complete guide available to help you with the process.
Essentially, whenever you see a “minus sign” in NFL betting, that team can be considered the favorite. That applies to both point spread and moneyline bets. If a team is -3.5 on the spread – or 3.5-point favorites – they would need to win the game by at least four points to cover. If they’re -150 on the moneyline, they’re also favored to win the game outright.
A “plus sign” works as the opposite. Those teams are considered underdogs on the spread and on the moneyline. Underdogs have the potential to lose the game outright while still covering the spread, and they would net plus-money on the moneyline if they were to secure a victory.
Oddsmakers for each sportsbook set preliminary odds based on “power ratings”. Each team is essentially assigned a number representing how much better or worse they are than the average team that season. When two teams are squaring off against each other, all the sportsbooks need to do is use their power ratings to determine the spread.
However, that’s just a starting point. A number of different factors then go into the equation. Injuries, home-field advantage, travel, rest advantages, the weather, and public perception are all factors in setting the lines.
One of the most interesting parts about sports betting is that the market is dynamic. It’s constantly evolving with lines sometimes changing right up until kickoff.
A number of different factors can move lines, but money is the biggest. The “sharps” – aka professional bettors – can use their money to tell the sportsbooks which lines they think are incorrect. If a seven-point underdog is getting tons of professional action, the oddsmakers will usually adjust and drop that team down to +6.5 and continue adjusting the line as needed.
Injuries are another factor that play a huge role, particularly when it involves a key position like a starting quarterback. If a quarterback were to be ruled out on Friday for a Sunday game, the spread would likely adjust by at least a few points to account for the backup quarterback.
Poor weather can also move a total down by many points. If passing the ball is going to be difficult, it’s not uncommon to see totals drop by upwards of a full touchdown, as more carries generally lead to more clock being used on each play.
Occasionally, sportsbooks will decide to pull a game off the board if they feel that they don’t have enough information. This happens primarily when a key player – particularly a quarterback – is dealing with an injury. If the sportsbook doesn’t know if the quarterback is going to play, it becomes extremely tough to set a line. For example, the Chiefs look a lot different with Patrick Mahomes under center than they do with any backup. As more information becomes available later in the week, oddsmakers will eventually put that game back on the board. Once that happens, it will be available in our Odds Grid.