With the NFL season just beginning, knowing how to bet smart on football is essential if you’re looking to have fun and, if you can, be successful. Having a good, solid betting system in place is key to placing good bets. Of course, you don’t need to be a seasoned professional to be successful either, which is why we’re going to go through some of the best betting strategies to consider.
Don’t go with your heart
While this is often very hard to overcome, one of the first rules for betting on the NFL is to put your heart to one side. Yes, you may have a favourite team, but if you’re playing to win you need to forget about this. You can still cheer on your favourite team, but if they have a bad track record against a specific team, it’s a good idea to factor this in and potentially bet against them.
Being more objective is essential if you’re going to succeed. If not, you won’t be making smart bets and will continue to lose over the longer term. As such, make sure you’re keeping an eye on your biases and try to avoid falling into that trap.
Home or away games
Another hugely impactful factor, when betting on the NFL, is where the game is being played. Some teams like the Seahawks always perform well at home regardless of what their form is the for the rest of the season. Factoring things like this in to your betting strategy is essential if you actually want to succeed. You should always compare the home and away record of each team head-to-head, giving an advantage to those teams playing at home.
Not only, that, but as the US is pretty vast, you should also be factoring in travel time and changes in the game time. West Coast teams can travel east with greater ease than those travelling the opposite way. Nevertheless, for day games, West Coast teams will likely be playing three hours later than the timezone they are used to which can really impact their game, especially as there is not much in the way of turnaround time between games.
Understand the game, not just the trends
While it’s always good to follow trends as patterns can be great predictive tools, this shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of your betting. Teams can still have off days, and you need to be aware of any injuries, loss of form, changes in the weather and so on. With this in mind, you should always check injury reports to see if the team is firing on all cylinders as you are expecting it to.
Helping you out on this are a number of top tipster sites that provide such information. Some sites provide the best NFL betting promos for today alongside some of the most accurate predictions. This can really help you get your head around some of the trickier aspects. However, don’t put all your money on what tipsters say but rather use this as a basis for your own predictions. Tipsters often get it wrong as well. This is sport after all.
Consider the bet types
Finally, when you choose your bets you should carefully consider what types of bets you’re going to place. Don’t just fall for great value as the underdog is often the underdog for a reason. Simply placing a bet on them because of the potential payout is not going to pay off in the long run.
You should always be monitoring the lines throughout the week as some provide better odds earlier on. If you’re sure about who you’re betting on, placing your bet earlier on in the week will mean you get better odds. Leave it until the last minute and the odds will have most likely dropped as more and more punters place their bets.
