In sports betting, oddsmaker's calculate the odds, or probability, of one team or person winning against the other. The odds are presented showing a favorite and an underdog, a point spread or moneyline, and a total, each of which is used to make various types of bets. The odds that a point spread provide may vary based on the sportsbook. The purpose of a point spread is to level out the playing field between two teams/players. Accordingly, most point spread bets provide odds close to even money. The average odds for a point spread wager is between -110 and -120. When it comes to point spread betting, and you bet against the spread, it won’t be enough for the favorite to win the game outright. The favorite would have to win by more than a specified amount of points or goals (the spread) in order for that team to cover the point spread. Bettors can then either choose for the favored team to win by more than the number of points set, or bet on the underdogs to lose by less than the number of points they are underdogs by or win the game straight up. For example, the spread could be set on the favored team at 6.5 points.

Easily the most popular type of betting for NFL football is “spread” betting or more commonly known as betting against the spread. Bettors who are new to NFL betting or betting in general may be a little confused with NFL spread betting, but it is pretty easy to understand once it is explained to you. We will explain what betting against the spread means below.

What is Betting Against The Spread?

For each NFL game the oddsmakers set a number of points in which the favored team is favored by. Bettors can then either choose for the favored team to win by more than the number of points set, or bet on the underdogs to lose by less than the number of points they are underdogs by or win the game straight up. For example, the spread could be set on the favored team at 6.5 points. This would mean in order for a bet on the favored team on the spread to win they would need to win by more than 6.5 points (7 or more) in order to win the bet. It also means that a bet on the underdog team would win if the underdogs lost by less than 6.5 points (6 or less) or won the game outright.

Example of NFL Spread Bet

Below is an example of what NFL spread betting would look like:

Matchup

• TeamsSpread
• Dallas Cowboys -2.5
• New York Giants +2-5

The negative (-) sign indicates that the Cowboys are the favorites, while the positive (+) sign indicates that the New York Giants are the underdogs. With the spread set at 2.5 points, a bet on the Cowboys would mean that they would have to win by more than 2.5 points (3 or more) in order for you to win that bet. A bet on New York would mean that the Giants would have to either lose by 2.5 or less points (2 or less) or win the game outright in order for your bet to win.

Here is another example with a screenshot taken from 5Dimes.eu during Week 3 of the 2013 NFL season:

Here you can see that the Rams are +3.5, while the Cowboys are -3.5. So for this example the Cowboys are 3.5 point favorites, while the Rams are underdogs of 3.5 points. If you were to bet on St Louis you would need them to lose by 3 or fewer points or just win the game outright. If you were to bet on Dallas you would need the Cowboys to win by 4 or more points.

If the Cowboys were to win by 3 points, lets say 30-27, any bets on the Rams +3.5 would win. Even though the Rams didn’t win the game they covered the spread of 3.5 points.

Now if the Cowboys were to win by 4 points, lets say 31-27, the Cowboys have covered the spread and anyone who wagered on Dallas would win their bets.

Other NFL Spread Betting Information

You may often notice that the spread is sometimes set at an even number such as 3, 6 , 10, etc. In this case if the favored team won by the exact amount set for the spread the bet would be pushed, and all bets would be returned. For example, if the Patriots were 3 point favorites and they won by a FG (3 points) than this would results in a push, meaning no matter which side you bet on you would get your money returned to you.

The most common NFL spreads are usually set between about 2.5-10.5 points, but you will also almost always have games each week with spreads lower than 2.5 and higher than 10.5. In the event that the oddsmakers feel the game doesn’t need a spread, it would be set at 0 or what some call a pick’em (both teams are given even odds to win for this type of bet).

The odds given on the spread are usually -110 unless otherwise noted. It is not uncommon to see one side of the spread being -105, with the other side being -115. If you don’t see any odds listed for each side of NFL spreads you are supposed to assume the odds are -110 on each. Not sure how to read NFL betting odds? Check out our Sports Betting Odds guide.

Now that you know the basics of NFL spread betting you’ll want to check out our Sports Betting Strategy guide which has some great NFL strategy articles written by a professional bettor.

Picking a confidence pool against the spread is basically the same as the confidence pool picks we know and love, with one minor difference: instead of picking who wins the game outright, you’re picking who wins the game against the spread. So how would the strategy work for this little nuance?

Football Against The Spread Picks

It actually makes things a little simpler. With a normal confidence pool, we need to figure out how likely one team will win. On this site, we use an implied probability given by Vegas Moneyline values to figure out the win probability of a team. With a point spread confidence pool, the key difference is you can almost assume that the spread makes each game a 50/50 proposition (we can test this assumption and tweak off it later). There may be some subtle reasons why it’s not quite 50/50, but it makes for a good start. Basically, this is a normal confidence pool except all the games are 50% win probability.

So how do you pick assuming every game is 50/50, essentially a coin flip? The answer lies in going contrarian. If 100% of the people go with heads, and it’s a 50/50 proposition, you should go with tails. 50% of the time you’ll take first place, and 50% of the time you’ll take last place. Over the long run, you’ll have the same score because the probabilities are the same, but in the short run you’ll win your share of weeks.

How do you assign confidence? In this format, you don’t use win probabilities: they’re all close to 50/50. So all that’s left is going contrarian. Pick the teams that are lowest percentage picked and go high on confidence. As for how much you should pick against the crowd, you’ll need to get a feel for your league to see how contrarian it is. If a lot of people pick against the crowd then you have to as well. If a lot of people pick with the crowd, you can go with the crowd more. Also, if you’re up in the standings, pick against the crowd less. If you’re down in the standings, pick against the crowd a lot.

Overall, this type of confidence pool league is a lot more random. If you don’t know much, you have a much better chance of winning in this format than in the classic format because Vegas gives you the spread.

There are a few sites that I’ve found that attempt to model going against the spread. The best one I’ve found is a model that uses a Monte Carlo simulation from WinThatPool.com.

Vegas Picks Against The Spread

Anyone out there playing confidence leagues picking against the spread? Any thoughts? Anyone have a league I can join to test this strategy out?