When it comes to betting on the NFL and finding a trustworthy website, there’s more to it than just a sweet deposit bonus. We send our editors out to review NFL betting sites from top to bottom to make test out their customer service, see how fast their payouts come, examining their different betting lines, try out their live betting, play on their mobile sites and much more. Our goal is to guide our readers to the best NFL betting sites because we want you to have the best online sports betting experience when you’re placing your NFL bets.
BetUS is a popular online sportsbook with a reputation for offering generous bonuses rapid payouts and high-quality odds.
Bovada is one of the best betting sites available online. Get a 75% bonus up to $750 with a Bitcoin deposit or a 50% bonus up to $250 with a cash deposit. We love their fast payouts, live odds and a huge selection of betting lines.
Although MyBookie is one of the newer ones to the market (2014), they’ve wasted little time carving itself out a name among the best sportsbooks out there right now.
SportsBetting offers one of the highest bonuses for first-time deposits as new players receive 50% bonus to a maximum of $1,000. On top of that, you can get a a $50 mobile free play and a $25 risk-free bet.
Thunderpick is the ideal place for those looking to bet on esports or regular sports and use cryptocurrency. They have a huge array of esports betting options like DOTA, Valorant and Call of Duty to go along with all of the pro sports like NFL, NBA and UFC.
The best NFL betting sites online are:
- Bovada – The best NFL betting site for first time gamblers.
- BetOnline – Impressive reload bonuses for NFL bets.
- MyBookie – Best mobile platform for NFL betting.
- BookMaker – One of the most reliable NFL gambling sites.
- YouWager – Offers some of the best NFL betting lines.
There are few sports that are more exciting to bet on than the NFL. There’s just something about the rush on a Sunday where there is a wave of games in the 1:00 PM ET timeslot followed by a number of key primetime afternoon games, followed by Sunday Night Football. And then Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football bring their own flavor to the party. The NFL is arguably one of the most balanced major sports in North America, so teams can get from bad to good in the span of one offseason or even in the course of half a season. There's no doubt betting on the NFL makes the whole experience more exciting. So let us guide you in finding the best and most trustworthy NFL betting sites.
Selecting Trustworthy NFL Betting Sites
This page is an NFL-focused resource that our editors have worked on tirelessly. Our goal here is to offer a valuable outlet where you can get more information on how to find the best NFL betting sites on the internet. You want to know where to look for betting sites you can trust, sites which are safe, and sites that give you a full range of NFL betting options like props, live betting and futures. You obviously want to know what are the trusted sites that payout on time and carry out its basic duties consistently and with no hassle.
So, what we’ve done is if we’ve come across any indication that a website isn’t playing straight and is either cutting people’s limits down, giving customers the runaround for payouts or any other type of shenanigans, we will cease to mention it and give it any sort of publicity. We will also look into the specific problem involved, so that prospective bettors get the latest troubleshooting and advocacy reports. Full sunlight and transparency are non-negotiable requirements for any website which is going to be promoted on our site.
Online NFL betting sites which offer customer support 24 hours a day will make the cut at Sportsbook Audit. Outlets which don’t respond to queries in a timely fashion are showing that they don’t care about the customer experience to the fullest extent possible. That is an easy way to get scrubbed from any of the pages of content you will find at Sportsbook Audit.
What You Need To Know To Get Started With NFL Betting Sites
Everyone wants to be the person who comes up with the ideal formula and pattern for betting on NFL games. You might need to find a mathematical edge or a type of historical analysis which uncovers a new way to assess pro football teams, players, and games – if you can find that pathway, good luck! – but let’s not try to overthink this overall process. As a bettor, you need to rely on a few core, foundational truths. One of them is this: Do what works for you. Don’t try to imitate a neighbor of friend who has his or her own betting habits. You can only follow your habits and your instincts. You need to shape those instincts to fit your analysis and your conclusions about pro football.
Some gamblers will make it a habit to wager on the underdog more often. Others will try to place their trust on favorites. Some will try to hedge their bets and win money by going in the middle on a bet. Some will focus on point spread bets, while others will focus on the moneyline – but more on that later.
When you get started, we recommend that you:
- Work With A Budget – Sometimes when you discover an NFL betting site, you might go crazy with online betting. Work with a budget to start and try to stay within that.
- Treat This As Entertainment – There’s no question that everyone wants to win money betting on NFL games but it’s not easy to do it in the long run. Treat this as a way of having fun first and foremost and then think about winning your NFL betting plays as a bonus.
- Know What You’re Doing – When you start to bet on NFL lines, you want to know what you’re doing. That means understanding the basic online sports betting jargon (point spreads, moneylines, over-unders) and understanding which NFL betting site is more trustworthy than others. We explain this fully down below.
5 Things That Separates Good NFL Betting Sites From Bad
- Low Juice – One thing that separates the best sportsbooks from the worst is low juice. This means that when you wager on the lines, you’ll pay more at some sites than others for the very same lines. For example, NFL spreads are typically at -110. However, if a book offers -105 on the lines, that means you’re saving lots of money in the long run.
- Live Betting – The best NFL betting sites are going to offer live betting on every single NFL game on the board. That means all of the Sunday games, Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football and everything in between. Most sites do that these days but not all. Beyond that, a sweet bonus is when the sports betting site has a big variety of betting options for each game. Some sites will have the barebones spreads, moneylines and totals. However, the best books will give you the option to wager on quarters, halves, props, player props, will there be overtime, alternate spreads and totals, and much more.
- Props & Futures – The best NFL sports betting sites are going to offer a huge selection of props and futures while the worst aren’t going to offer much in this way. Props could include how many passing yards Tom Brady will throw for in a game or how many touchdowns a receiver might finish with for the season. In terms of futures, those could be anything from regular season win totals, odds to win the AFC or NFC, odds to win divisions, who’ll win the MVP award, first head coach to get fired and much more. The basic books will simply have the championship lines up but the best sports books will have a plethora of these types of options.
- Great Customer Service – When you’re looking at which sports betting site to play with, make sure you’re not only looking at the deposit bonus because that’s what they use to lure you in. The bonus is important but what’s more vital is the customer service. Are they available to you 24/7? Are they available via phone and e-mail and live chat? Will they be useful to you when you reach out to them with questions? If the answer is ‘yes’, then you know you’re dealing with one of the better NFL betting sites. If the company is ever hard to reach and isn’t responsive, you probably want to avoid them.
- Lots Of Deposit Options, Fast Payouts – One of the biggest keys to NFL betting sites is to find the ones with good deposit options and fast payouts. Some sports betting sites will only allow you to deposit one or two ways, and then they also make it hard to get your money out. You want a trustworthy company that has plenty of ways to get your money in – that could be credit cards, bank wires, bank transfers, cryptocurrencies and more – and offers fast payouts when you want your money back. That might mean same-day payouts, expedited checks in the mail, bank wires or payments back via cryptocurrency. Never play at a NFL betting site that has a bad history paying out players. Remember that any NFL betting site worth it salt will give you a bonus when you first deposit. That could be a cash bonus, a risk free bet bonus, a matchplay bonus or something else. Many of these sites will also offer a casino bonus (if you play in the casino) and a poker bonus (if you play poker too), so keep an eye out for those. Most sites will offer different bonus plans that can range from 10% all the way up to 100% or higher.
NFL Betting: Beginner Tips To Get You Off On The Right Foot
A sports bettor – on the NFL, yes, but truly for any other sport as well – has to establish a fundamental awareness of the meaning and implications of every choice he or she makes. You have to know the vocabulary, the structure, the patterns, and the consequences of what you see at a betting site on your computer screen. Guessing or going in blind doesn't help. You have to absolutely know the terms mean and what the odds say, so that you can confidently and decisively bet instead of making a decision, which could cost you a lot of money.
People will make losing bets; there’s nothing wrong with that. It will happen. It would, however, be a terrible thing to lose money because you didn’t do basic homework and made a bet for reasons which didn’t apply or weren’t entirely accurate. Get educated on everything you do as a bettor. Gain mastery of the concepts. Then make informed bets – not all of them will win, but you will know that you gave yourself the best possible chance to win, which is all you can reasonably ask for.
Most betting sites won’t post the odds for NFL teams in the outdated manner of X-slash-Y – 10/1, 9/2, etc. – but in numbers with plus or minus signs, such as (+350) or (-1200).
Grasping the mechanics and meaning of a moneyline can seem daunting. Plenty of betting sites will provide a risk-reward calculator for bettors who don’t have total command of the numbers involved and what they mean.
Get equipped for sports betting with some central, essential tips below:
- Determine A Bankroll & Average Bet – If you’re going to be betting on NFL lines, the first thing you want to do is figure out what your bankroll will be. That’s probably the amount you’re going to deposit at your top rated NFL betting site. From there, though, what you want to figure out is what you’re going to wager per game? For example, if you deposit and get a welcome bonus, and your account starts at $1000, you can’t gamble $500 per game because it only takes you a couple of losses to get cleaned out. When you bet on the NFL, you want to think about each bet being no more than 5% of your bankroll. That way you can withstand a bad losing streak and survive for the long run. You may want to consider using betting units to manage your bankroll.
- Know Good Sources Of Information – When you dive into gambling at an online NFL betting site, you’re going to encounter all sorts of betting lines. However, before you even start NFL betting, you want to think about what are the best NFL sources of information. Of course, watching and reading ESPN is a good place to start researching your NFL bets. However, that is a very mainstream source that focuses on very general news. They are good for injuries and breaking news, but not necessarily tips on how to win at the NFL gambling sites. Following the right people on Twitter is useful as they will post their picks or reads on games regularly. Then you’ll also want to find other sites that talk about odds, lines and online betting in general, so that you can get previews on the games from that perspective too. After you’ve gotten a bunch of insight, then you can start to make your own decisions with the online NFL odds.
- Watch The Games – Sure, this is probably the easiest part of NFL betting online but it’s an aspect that many bettors don’t follow through on. When you watch the games, you’ll get an idea of what’s happening. You’ll see how teams perform as that will help you make decisions further down the road. Sometimes, if you only watch the sports highlights, you’re going to see a small picture of what went down. The top NFL handicappers will watch all of the games, see everything for themselves and use that to make decisions on the odds in the futures weeks. If you cut corners and don’t watch the NFL games, it’s that much harder to beat the NFL lines.
Reading Some Basic 101 Sports Betting Articles Will Help You Get Started
It is paramount that a bettor knows the language and the consequences of online NFL betting, so in this section, we’re going to talk about some of the articles you should read to get you through the 101 stuff.
- Bankroll Management – We’ve talked about this above but this is crucial for success with sports betting. Figure out how much you have to bet with and how much you’ll bet per game.
- Sports Betting Glossary – Read through a glossary, so that you can get a better understanding of all of the key terms that you’ll find at online betting sites. If you don’t know what a bonus is, how to read the odds or how the NFL betting site work, you’ll want to start here.
- Calculating Betting Odds – It’s crucial to understand how to read the odds because you’re going to see them all the time when you visit an NFL betting site. You need to understand how much you’ll win betting the NFL lines on each side, so you can gauge whether the odds are worth it.
Best NFL Betting Strategies
You might think that you can reinvent the wheel and that you can find the betting formula or pattern which will defeat everyone else. Maybe you can get a few select insights, but in terms of an overall process, you need to realize that time-tested strategies have existed for decades for a very good reason: they are proven methods. You might be able to deviate from a standard formula or method once in a while, but for the most part, you should study and apply what successful bettors have done for a long time. Here are our recommended tips that top NFL bettors use:
- Study In The Offseason – One of the biggest mistakes novices make is they don’t pay attention to NFL betting in the offseason. Sure, it’s mostly a quiet for NFL betting sites but the reality is that the top NFL bettors are doing their work 365 days a year. That means you have to pay attention to coaching changes, free agency, the NFL Draft, roster cuts, training camp and the NFL preseason if you want to be successful betting the NFL.If you’re planning to just log into your sports betting accounts on the eve of the season in hopes of finding NFL betting success without really knowing all of the changes, your chances of winning go way down.
- Bet Futures & Props – The majority of online sports bettors will focus on spreads, moneylines and totals. It’s understandable: those are the three major ways to wager on the games. However, any NFL betting site worth its salt is going to have lots of options to wager on teams to win their division, regular season win totals, player props, team props and more. If they have a create your own props tool, that’s a bonus. There is lots of value with these lines as long as you do your research.
- Play Fantasy Sports – The best NFL betting handicappers typically will also play NFL fantasy and DFS. That’s something they do not only because it’s also fun and profitable, but because it forces you to follow the NFL in other ways. Playing NFL fantasy means that you’re up on all of the latest player news. That’s going to help you with NFL betting and beating the gambling sites on the NFL lines too. It all correlates. If you’re playing NFL fantasy, then you’ll have a better read. Know which players are injured, who is coming up and who is overachieving. All of that is a bonus when it comes to beating the NFL odds and NFL betting.
- Have Accounts At Multiple NFL Betting Sites – It’s important to have accounts at multiple betting sites or sports betting sites. That gives you the opportunity to shop around. What that means is that you’ll always get the best odds when you’re wagering on the betting lines. Sometimes, this is best explained with an example using NFL lines:
- Betting Site #1
Green Bay Packers -2.5
Detroit Lions +2.5 - Betting Site #2
Green Bay Packers -3
Detroit Lions +3
- Betting Site #1
While the difference in these odds is just a half a point, it can have a huge impact. It can decide whether you win or lose. Think about it: if you bet on the Packers they win by exactly three points, you would have two different outcomes at these NFL betting sites. At No. 1, you’d win your bet but at No. 2, you’d tie. The same goes for the Lions if they lose by exactly three. That being the case, shopping around at the best NFL betting sites is not only useful, it's crucial to your success. If you only play at one NFL betting site, you’re going to go with whatever their lines are. Sometimes that could be the best price on the market and sometimes you might be getting ripped off.
Since it doesn't cost you anything to have multiple accounts at different NFL betting sites, it's to your advantage to do that. Also, each book will give you a deposit bonus. It’s free to sign up and when you make your first deposit, they’ll give you some type of bonus. Everyone of the NFL betting sites we’ve seen offers some kind of bonus. That might be a free bet, a cash bonus or something else. That means you can start off with a profit thanks to that bonus. That's a great starting point, so use it to you advantage to pad your bankroll right off the bat.
Types of NFL Bets You’ll Find At NFL Betting Sites
A good sports betting site will present a wide selection of markets for the NFL. Let’s look at a typical assortment of NFL betting lines.
Against the Point Spread
A normal, widely-recognized and familiar kind of NFL football wager is the straight bet against the point spread. If a team is favored by 4.5 points, that team covers the spread if it wins by five or more points. The underdog covers the spread if it loses by four points or fewer, or if it wins the game outright.
You can put down a bet at the NFL betting sites themselves, and the usual odds are -110 on both sides of the given bet.
Vigorish or Juice
A bettor has to lay an extra 10% as something called the “vigorish.” If you don’t already know the term, the sports betting sites try to avoid a risk at every turn. They want to make sure they will accumulate an overall profit on their business. In order to do this, the “vigorish” is a guard against a profit loss for online nfl betting sites. Consider this example: If the same number of NFL bets is taken on both sides of the bet at -110, that extra “vigorish” becomes the guaranteed, locked-in profit margin, since half of the bets will win for the house (the betting site itself), and half will be paid out to the public on the side of the bet which loses for the house.
Also consider an example of a “push,” in which the bet is a tie. A team is favored by three points and wins the game by three points. That is a push. No payouts are made, and no bets lose, either, but the 10 percent vigorish ensures the house gets a profit.
Misconceptions About The Juice
A common misconception held by outsiders who try to figure out the betting industry is this: They think the bookies are trying to crush the public – the people who place wagers – but that is not true. All they want to make sure of is that they balance the action and get roughly the same amounts of money coming in on both sides of the NFL bet. If the money on both sides of a bet is roughly equal, the house will always win with the vigorish involved. A nightmare for an NFL bookie is if all the money is coming in on only one side of the bet, and that side wins. That’s when books get cleaned out.
You might see a game with a point spread which looks really unusual. You might think that an NFL team should be favored by five or six more – or fewer – points. That NFL betting line doesn’t indicate what the bookies think will actually happen in the game. No – the NFL betting line represents what the bookies view as the point spread where equal amounts of money will be wagered on both sides – for the favorite and the underdog. That’s how books and betting sites make a profit. That is their true business.
Moneyline Bets
Another NFL bet to place on one of two teams to win a game is the moneyline bet. In this case, you have to pick the straight-up winner. This sounds easy enough, but the odds complicate things.
As opposed to the point spread bet with -110 odds on both sides, the moneyline is weighing which team is better on a flat level. The point spread bet is to measure the extent to which one team might win, but the moneyline removes those degrees and measures. It is much more a straight indication of which team is likely to win.
If a moneyline game is not an obvious call, consider this kind of example: The Rams, as a favorite in a game, would be -300, and the price for the Eagles as the underdog would be +200. It is not all that enticing or thrilling to put down $300 to win $100, but some people might think they’re sure the Rams will win. In that case, risking $300 to win $100 doesn’t seem that bad. They would go for it.
The real value might lie not in betting on a moneyline favorite, but on an underdog if the price is right.
Totals Wagering
NFL betting sites list the totals on all the games. A total is the overall number of points that will be scored by two teams in a game. If San Francisco beats Cincinnati, 45-38, that’s an 83-point game. If the total was 80 and you bet the over, you won. Had you bet the under, you would have lost. If the total was 85 and you bet the under, you won. If you bet the over, you lost. Hence, the common term for a “total bet” is the over-under bet, since you either bet on the total being over or under the listed number.
The odds are set at -110 on either side of the bet.
Parlays
The top-tier NFL betting sites get many parlay bets because many people desire a huge payday. It's every bettors dream to bet a small amount of money with the chance to win lots.
A parlay does this: It is a bet with multiple propositions selections where the payout is multiplied. They all have to win in order for the parlay bet to win. You can’t get six of eight parlay components right in order to win a parlay bet; you have to win all eight to cash in. The more parlay components you have on your betting ticket, the more money you will get if you do win. However, loading up on different outcomes obviously makes it harder to actually win in the first place. You might want to consider a four- or five-way parlay instead of a 10-way parlay to start.
Also, this is not limited to one type of bet. You can have a parlay ticket with some point-spread bets, some moneyline bets, and some total bets. The moneyline bets are naturally not as hard as point spread or total bets, though. If you have a parlay ticket full of high-odds moneyline bets, you’re not going to get a huge payday. If you hit several point spread or total bets on a large parlay, you will get a huge payout.
NFL Teaser Bets
A teaser bet is a form of a parlay but it gives the customer some flexibility. It involves putting multiple plays on the same ticket but you get to move the line. Since you are getting that benefit, this type of a parlay isn't as lucrative. In a teaser, you receive added points in your favor. You have a higher chance of winning your bet but the payout is smaller. The normal adjusted point amounts for teasers are 6 to 7.5 points.
For Example:
If the Cowboys are favored by eight points, a six-point teaser makes the Cowboys a two-point favorite. Let's say the Kansas City Chiefs are favored over the Baltimore Ravens by five points. If you want to bet on the Chiefs in a teaser, the teaser line would have the Ravens being favored by one or two points.
You can tease a bet on the spread and you can tease totals at an online betting site. There is a page on the Sportsbook Audit website that offers a primer how to bet teasers. That includes a payout list that you can observe and study in order to get more information.
NFL Pleaser Bets
There is yet another bet which is somewhat related to the teaser. It is called a pleaser. This bet is based on the same framework. It is a multi-outcome bet, only this one operates the opposite of a teaser. This is where the betting lines are six to 7.5 points worse than you would expect. You are betting not on especially easy lines, but on especially hard lines. So, if you were to take that same Chiefs -5 bet versus the Ravens, and you wanted to bet on the Chiefs, a pleaser puts the line at the Chiefs -11 or 12. That's opposite of a teaser where the Ravens would be a one- or two-point favorite.
A pleaser is the opposite of a teaser. In this bet, you give up points but get a better payout. It's extra hard to win but the long odds mean that if you do win, you’re getting a huge payout. As an example, for a two-team pleaser, you get paid at +600. That’s $600 won for every $100 wagered, on just two game-related outcomes. Imagine what a successful four-game pleaser could fetch you if you win.
Halftime Bets and Live Wagering
Online betting sites offer halftime lines on the various kinds of available bets for NFL games.
This is not a redo of the pregame betting line, and it is not a full-game point spread or total. It is strictly focused on the second half point spread and total. You are focusing only on what will happen in the second half of the NFL game.
Online NFL Futures Betting
A futures bet is not a game-specific bet that's decided tonight. It is a forward-looking bet like a wager on who'll win the Super Bowl, division or conference. In NFL betting, online gambling sites will post odds the division titles, the conference championships, and the Super Bowl winner.
If there is a team which can become a good darkhorse threat to win the title – much like the Tennessee Titans in 2020 – and that team winds up winning the Super Bowl, you could score huge. A futures bet placed on that team winning the Super Bowl early would be generous. For example, if you bet the Cincinnati Bengals in the preseason prior to 2021, you could have had them at 66/1.
NFL Prop Bets
Prop bets, short for proposition bets, are available at nearly all NFL betting sites. These are wagers on very specific isolated performance stats. For example, think about how many receiving yards a specific player will get in a game.
Betting The Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is a mega event in that it lures bettors with tons of prop bets. That's in addition to the normal point-spread, moneyline, and total bets. The Super Bowl has lots of props related to the actual game itself – Who will score the first touchdown? Will any field goal be longer than 47 yards? – but it also has propositions related to popular culture and non-football events, such as the length of the national anthem being longer or shorter than two minutes. There will be several dozen if not hundreds of these props at Super Bowl time. SportsbookAudit has created a list of the best Super Bowl betting sites. If you're looking to place a bet on the big game that's where you want to start your Super Bowl betting journey.
Online NFL Betting Options
Various wagers can be made at the foremost NFL websites in the online betting marketplace. These wagers range from simple, game-specific wagers to long-term wagers with a lot of conditions and requirements.
Online NFL Betting Options
Various wagers can be made at the foremost NFL websites in the online betting marketplace. These wagers range from simple, game-specific wagers to long-term wagers with a lot of conditions and requirements.
NFL Handicapping
Handicapping is all about sizing up teams, players, matchups, trends, weather and more. This is about old-fashioned study and homework. There are all sorts of statistics and trends, but which matter the most? You can’t just offer a knee-jerk opinion. You have to spend a few hours studying trends, looking at injury reports, learning about key players. If you understand how the rosters have or haven’t changed, you'll have an edge.
There are links at Sportsbook Audit which explain handicapping in greater detail.
Forecasting Lines And Score Prediction
Forecasting lines involves the attempt to accurately peg where Vegas will set the odds for a game. Score prediction uses computer algorithms designed to predict the final scores of games anywhere in the world of sports.
Turnover Charts And Analysis
Turnovers are the most central and important variable in determining whether NFL teams win or lose. It’s that simple. Teams inclined to turn over the ball a lot are teams you generally shouldn’t trust. Go with a high-turnover team only if it is likely to score several more touchdowns than its number of turnovers. For instance: A team might average two turnovers a game (bad), but if it averages five touchdowns, it won’t matter. If the ratios are the same, don’t trust that team.
Finding Your Own Niche in NFL Betting
This is one of the basics. Don’t think you’re the genius who has the plan or blueprint everyone else lacks. Do your homework. Don’t wing it. However, when you do your homework, trust your own instincts and be confident in the work you have done. Don’t try to imitate other bettors.
Betting the Current Super Bowl Odds
The Super Bowl is the busiest day in American sports betting. The 2022 Super Bowl Odds are already posted by some of the biggest betting sites. As we noted earlier, this event combines actual football betting choices with all sorts of cultural, media-related, and celebrity props. It’s a mixture of serious analysis and fun. Know where your strengths are. If you know culture but not football, stay away from football, and vice-versa.
How to Sign up at a NFL Gambling Site to Bet on the NFL
Choose the betting site which gives you the best odds with the widest offerings and the easiest, most pleasant experience. Don’t settle for one of those three things; try to get all three, or at least two of three. The sign-up process is short and simple. You will need your email address and your deposit information. You can use PayPal and Bitcoin, among various other outlets, to fund your account.
Check your e-mail, look for incentives and ways to win more. Be vigilant and don’t let opportunities to win slip through your fingers if you can help it.