Football Bets for Beginners: ABC Guide

There are few better feelings in this world than hanging with your buddies, watching football, betting on the big game, and waiting for the results. Football sports betting is an absolute blast and once you get good at it, it’s extremely fun. Doing this on a Finnish sports betting site without registration makes it even easier.

We understand that betting on football can be a little overwhelming in the beginning. There are different numbers and verbage and people are telling you all about the spread that you know nothing about. No one is fluent in sports betting right when they start but this is the right place to learn how to be better and learn how to be a winner. 

In this article, we will do our best to teach you the basics of football sports betting, what words you probably need to know and the mistakes that you absolutely must avoid. This will be informational and helpful for you so you can be just like this guy the next time you place a bet. 

The Words You Should Know 

1. Alternate Lines – The sportsbooks offer lines, also called point spreads, on sporting events. Different books offer different lines and the alternate lines are the opposite of the regular point spread
2. American Odds – American odds are displayed differently than the rest of the world. Moneyline odds are shown as + or – a number in the US. Example: Packers +400 American odds would be 5.0 or 4/1. The bettor takes home the same amount of money if the wager wins.
3. Backdoor Cover – A backdoor cover can make for an interesting bet and occurs when a team is able to cover the spread total late in the game. An example would be a Packers player scoring a touchdown with 10 seconds left to go ahead 15 with a spread of GB -14. 
4. Bankroll – Total amount of money a bettor has to place wagers.
5. Betting Unit – A betting unit is the amount of a typical wager. A high roller might have a unit size of $15,000 per wager while a low roller has a unit size of $20 per wager.
6. Opening Line – This is the first point spread available for a game.
7. Early Cash Out – This is when the bettor decides to take a smaller wager instead of letting the full bet pay out so they can guarantee some sort of profit instead of chancing it
8. Handicapper – A person who analyzes sports events to predict the winning team or player.
9. Odds-on Favorite – When a team or person is heavily favored to win a game or event. 
10. Off the Board – When a sportsbook stops taking wagers on an event or participant they remove the game odds from the betting board. 
11. Player Props – A player prop bet is a wager on an individual player to do something during a game. For example, which player will score first in a football game?
12. Push – When a point spread wager lands exactly on the line offered by the sportsbook. The bettor receives their money back if they push. 

1. Straight Up – When a team wins or loses an event. The point spread isn’t involved with the winner or loser.
2. Take the Points – When a bettor places a wager on an underdog they are taking the points offered by the sportsbook.

How to be good: 

The whole point of sports betting is to have a good time and make the right decisions. There are a couple of ways that will help you do this but there is no way you should expect to win your bets every single time you are gambling, it’s unrealistic and it doesn’t keep expectations in line. Here are a few tops on how you can be the best at betting. 

-Look for Value: Looking for the best value in a sports bet is crucial. Cruising around to different sportsbooks and seeing who is offering the most competitive odds is the best way to find a bet. Many sites will preview different odds for a single game and where you can get the best bargain. You don’t want to bet Tampa -250 when you can bet Tampa -180 from another site. 

-Do Your Research: This seems very obvious but you would be surprised at how many bettors don’t look into the teams they are placing money on before they get going. You want to make sure that you really know what is going on and who is the team you should be betting on. Do you know how many times a team has covered in the last five games? Do you know who their best players are? If the answer to questions like that are no, you shouldn’t be betting on a team like that.  

-Check out the Trends: Every football bet has some kind of trend and you want to be the bettor that knows what that trend is. If you are about to bet on a Vikings MNF game, you better know that the Vikings are one of the worst MNF teams in the last five years. If you’re about to bet the over on the Chiefs/Saints game, you’ll want to know that these teams have a trend of scoring more than 55 points each time they play each other. Things like that will help you follow trends which help win bets. 

What to Avoid

-Unit Size: You should know your unit size and stick by it. You don’t want to spread out bets with different unit sizes. For example, if you are a bettor who places $20 on each bet you place, stick with that figure. Don’t make a bet of $40, $50 and then $20 because you will end up losing more often than winning when you’re panning bets like that. 

-Have the Money: This is the golden rule of football sports betting and it’s what you should live by. Don’t ever bet money that you don’t have. You can end up in a hole and it can be impossible to crawl out of it so make sure that you can write the check you never want to write if it ever comes down to that.