Handicapping NFL Football Lines

Football lines in the NFL are the most popular form of sports betting lines, and it really isn’t even close. The NFL, not Major League Baseball is America’s true national pastime, and betting is a major reason why. Let’s look at how to handicap NFL lines and some things to remember.

Football lines are so popular in the NFL that you will hear strategies and ideas about how to bet NFL games from nearly every source imaginable. Whether it is TV, radio, newspaper, or the Internet, opinions are everywhere about each game during the NFL season. Professional gamblers that look at football lines will decipher this information quickly, throwing out the bad and keeping a few nuggets. If you bet the NFL each week you will notice that certain games become popular picks. It seems that everyone has come up with a team, or teams, that will definitely cover the football lines this week. Too bad it is not that easy. These so-called consensus plays from the public rarely do well; in fact they oftentimes are a good go against in football lines. The only real chance you have as a gambler is to discard public and so-called expert opinion and do your own handicapping when you look at NFL lines.

A good approach to wagering against NFL lines might be to do the opposite of what everyone else does. When sportsbooks get pounded with action on one particular side, very often the other side will cover the football lines. This rule is not absolute because some years the favorites win, but in the long run the popular plays usually don’t win versus football lines. Sportsbooks are around for a reason, and it is not because the public continues to win. A basic betting approach to NFL lines would be to go against the grain and bet against the popular plays.

Another basic way to approach football lines is to play more underdogs than favorites. This goes right along with the previous tip of going against popular plays. If you didn’t know it already, favorites are very popular. People just don’t like betting the dogs in football lines. It is hard to take the team you don’t think is going to win the game, regardless of the points in football lines.

If you want some basic approaches to betting football lines in the NFL going against the popular plays, taking dogs, and even considering betting games under the total is a very good start.