Wagering 101

SUCCESSFUL WAGERING USING THE NFL MONEY LINE

Playing the NFL money line can be a great way to enhance your gambling winnings during the NFL football season. If you are especially adept at picking the winner of NFL football games, you can make a reasonable profit playing the money line without ever having to worry whether your winners cover the point spread. However, without a proper betting and money management strategy, the NFL money line is an area of gambling where you can quickly lose your money - even if you are able to pick more winners than losers.


(For those of you familiar with how the NFL money line works, read on, but if you need a refresher, start by reading our previous article Pro Football Betting - The Basics, where we discuss how to read and understand the money line.)


Because it’s much easier to pick the winner of an NFL football game than it is to predict both the winner and the game’s final margin of victory, making a winning wager using the NFL money line is much easier than using the NFL point spread. However, that doesn’t mean it’s any easier to make money playing the money line. Because of the way the money line works, not every pro football game is created equal – the same rate of return is not available on every wager. Each week, some teams offer more than a 100% return on your money while others yield only a portion of what you wager on them. When betting on the NFL point spread, you have the opportunity to win dollar for dollar (less vigorish) what you've wagered. However, your potential return on each dollar wagered using the NFL money line can vary quite a bit depending on the situation. As a result, when it comes to money management, betting on the NFL money line is much trickier than betting on the NFL point spread, and how well you manage your money plays a much larger role in determining your ultimate NFL football wagering success.

Is There a Betting Opportunity?

Other than determining the winner of an NFL football game, there are generally two other factors an NFL football handicapper must consider when wagering on the money line. The first is determining whether a wager actually should be made (is the risk/reward favorable?). The second factor is deciding how much to wager. Both of these decisions are crucial. Just because you can pick the winner of a professional football game the majority of the time doesn’t necessarily mean you should wager on it; and just because you are able to win the majority of your NFL money line wagers doesn’t necessarily mean your football wagering will be a profitable experience (we will illustrate this in an example below).

There are several different approaches pro football handicappers take when using the money line to make a wager. Some NFL handicappers focus on underdogs because of the higher payoff they offer. Others focus on favorites because they are generally easier to win. By overlooking one or the other, an NFL bettor limits their potential winnings. By ignoring favorites, handicappers leave a lot of winners and money on the table. By not considering underdogs, bettors rob themselves of higher potential returns on individual wagers. Betting on a combination of both throughout the course of the NFL season is the best approach for generating higher overall returns while lowering the relative amount of risk taken to generate those winnings. Of course, no pro football game should be wagered on unless it provides a good betting opportunity.

When determining whether to place a wager, one popular approach among professional football handicappers is to use the following formula:

Win % = Amount Risked / (Amount Risked + Amount of Win)

In this formula, Win % represents the percentage of wagers you must win at a specific money line level in order to breakeven over time. For example, if you were to wager on a favorite at -200, requiring you to lay $200 in order to win $100, then the required Win % would be:

Win % = 200/(200 + 100)
Win % = 66.7%

So, you would need to win a wager at this level at least 66.7% of the time in order to break even. This percentage also happens to be the point at which your Expected Return equals zero.

Expected Return = (Win % x Amount of Win) - (Loss % x Amount of Loss)
Expected Return = (66.7% x 100) - (33.3% x 200)
Expected Return = 66.7 - 66.7 = 0

On the other hand, if you were to wager on an underdog at +200, requiring you to lay $100 to win $200, the required Win% would be:

Win % = 100(100 + 200)
Win % = 33.3%

So theoretically, given the situation, if you have the ability to forecast the winner of an NFL game at a success rate higher than the required Win %, then that game offers you a betting opportunity with a positive return expected on your wager. Before actually placing a wager, however, other things should be considered. First, not all professional football games are created equal from a wagering perspective. The NFL money line fluctuates based upon the betting action, not the true superiority of one NFL team over another. As a result, in some cases a team going at -200 may be a bargain while in other instances you’d be taking on more risk than the game truly warranted. These are additional factors you need to consider when determining your level of confidence in forecasting the game’s ultimate winner.

How Much to Wager?

Once you’ve decided that a particular NFL football game does, in fact, offer you a betting opportunity, determining the appropriate amount to wager is the next step. One common mistake when wagering on the NFL money line is failing to minimize risk by wagering inappropriate amounts. Inexperienced NFL handicappers fail to consider the varying payouts that go along with the money line and will wager the same amount on favorites as they do on underdogs; or follow some other “home brewed” method lacking mathematical reason. Theoretically, over the course of the NFL season, you should win more of your wagers on favorites than on underdogs, but because the return is less, you need to wager more money individually on the favorites in order to maintain an overall net winning position throughout the football season. The following example will help clarify this point.

Assume that one week during the NFL football season you wager $100 each on two favorites at -230 and -250 and one underdog at +200. If the two favorites win and the underdog loses you will win approximately $83.50 combined on the favorites but will have lost $100 on the underdog. Here’s a situation we referred to earlier where you win two out of three wagers, but you lose money! Imagine if you repeated this performance each week during the football season – by the end of the year, you’d have wagered on twice as many winners as losers, yet lost money in the process. So, it’s a matter of not only knowing which NFL team to wager on, but how much to wager on them, that determines your ultimate success (or failure).

Wagering on the NFL money line can require a fair amount of capital when you have to lay down more than normal to wager on a favorite. It also requires sufficient bankroll to cover any losses when a favorite gets upset. As a result, you can quickly burn through your entire bankroll if you don’t control the amount you wager on each pro football game. Determining the appropriate amount to wager depends on whether you are betting on the favorite or the underdog. Considering the fact that your individual wagers on favorites will be more than on underdogs, you first need to decide what your standard NFL money line wager on underdogs should be. A simple method is to use ½ your standard wager on pro football games versus the NFL point spread. The resulting wager amount, although smaller than what you're normally used to, will allow you to increase the dollar amount of your wagers on favorites without risking too much of your bankroll all at once. This “½ rule” is a simple and quick method, but you can adjust this amount taking into consideration your personal bankroll and other wagers you typically make on a weekly basis.

Deciding what your standard wager on an underdog will be is the starting point in figuring out what amount you will wager on favorites. Determining the amount to wager on a favorite requires some work, and the amount will change depending on what the NFL money line is for the specific favorite you are considering. You can easily calculate the correct wager amount for favorites by using the following formula:

Wager Amount = (Underdog Standard Wager Amount)/100 x Money line

For example, if you normally wager $100 per game using the NFL point spread, then using the ½ rule for the NFL money line, you would wager $50 on an underdog which would mean wagering ½ the money line on a favorite.

Wager Amount = 50/100 x Money line = 0.5 x Money line

If a favorite is -250 you would wager $125 (0.5 x 250)


On the other hand, if your standard wager amount on the NFL point spread is $200, then you would wager $100 on underdogs and on a favorite at -250 you would wager $250.

Wager Amount = 100/100 x 250 = 1 x 250 = 250


How does this translate as far as winning and losing money? Well, let’s go back to our example above where you wager on two favorites at -230 and -250 and one underdog at +200. Assuming your standard underdog wager is $50, the amounts you would wager on the favorites would be $115 (50/100 x 230) and $125 (50/100 x 250). If both favorites win and the underdog loses you will net $50 in winnings. Win any two out of three and you will still net at least $25, something that wouldn’t happen without proper money management.

Now, assume you wagered on one favorite at -250 and two underdogs at +200 and +180. Sticking with our $50 standard underdog wager, you would lay $125 (50/100 x 250) on the favorite and $50 each on the underdogs. Once again, as long as you win two out of three you’ll be a net winner. You should follow this philosophy throughout the NFL season, making your predetermined standard NFL money line wager on underdogs and using the formula above to determine the amount to wager on favorites. Of course, you also need to keep in mind the risk/reward ratio at all times and should not adjust your standard wager amount from one week to the next because of losing/winning streaks. Don’t worry about whether you bet on more favorites than underdogs or vice versa, just stay true to your strategy of wagering only on those NFL games that offer a good betting opportunity based on the required win % and your ability to pick winners in particular game situations.

As you can see, money management plays a vital roll in ensuring successful results when wagering on the NFL money line. This is because of the varying payouts (return on investment) you receive when using it. Unlike equal wager amounts using the NFL point spread that offer equal returns, the NFL money line offers varying returns requiring wagers of different sizes in order to remain profitable. However, the ability to pick straight winners, along with a solid money management strategy can make playing the NFL money line a great way to enhance the total return on your pro football gambling throughout the NFL football season.




Other Articles

Pro Football Betting - The Basics

Pro Football Betting - Exotic Bets

Money Management - An Often Overlooked Key to Success