NFL Points Spread

Betting is a huge part of American football, and each year across North America and beyond, betting fans collectively wager hundreds of millions of dollars on the outcome of the NFL season as well as individual NFL games. And in this vein, one of the most popular NFL bet types is the straight bet, or spread bet, as fans call it.

As its name suggests, this bet involves the spread, or more specifically the 'point spread', which simply refers to the number of points by which one team is expected to beat another. The point spread is always determined by oddsmakers at both land and online sportsbooks, who are highly skilled at handicapping NFL games.

The reason for point spread bets is to allow NFL fans to bet on games where one team is superior to the other, and will most likely win. This is a similar concept to handicapping in golf, which allows average players to compete against much better rivals. With NFL points spread wagers, you can win money off either of the two teams, regardless of which one is expected to win.

NFL Points Spread Explained

The idea is that sportsbooks publish the NFL spread ahead of each game, in essence their 'prediction' of how many points they believe one team will beat another by. It's then up to you as an NFL betting fan to wager on the team you think will pay out. Below is an example of an NFL points spread bet:

Let's say that the Oakland Raiders will host the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday and are widely expected to win, sportsbooks would probably post the odds spread as something like this:

The minus sign means the Raiders are the favorites while the plus sign means the Vikings are the underdogs. The first number is the 5-point margin or spread the oddsmakers expect the Raiders to win by, and the .5 is included to prevent ties. The -110 means that to win $100, you must bet $110. But now you have a choice.

Covering the Spread

If you bet the favored Raiders, it means that they must win the game by 6 points or more for you to be paid. So if they win 26-18, you'd win because the point spread is 8, which is known as 'covering the spread.'

But if they win 22-18, you'd lose because the point spread or difference is only 4 points, not the 6 or more you needed to win. If you bet the underdog Vikings, you'd be paid out if they win the game outright or lose by 5 points or less.

While at first spread bets may seem complicated, they are really not. All you are doing in essence is betting on whether you think the oddsmakers predicted spread for an NFL game is too high or too low.