How To Bet Nfl Win Totals

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NFL teams would have to get to 16 games, and if they don’t, season win total bets would be refunded. Even though a forfeiture would technically count as a win, it wouldn’t for your bet. NFL Win Totals are one of the most popular future wagers and the odds for the upcoming 2020 regular season have been posted for all 32 teams. The 2019 NFL campaign saw 10 teams post double-digit victories and six of those teams posted 12 wins while another four had 13 victories or more.

'By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.'

- Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin was a wise old bird that loved physics, colonial unity and the no-huddle offense. And this quote is the perfect summation of what it takes to be successful betting on NFL win totals.

I have been one of the most prolific NFL futures bettors in the sports information industry. And whenever people ask me for tips on how to profit betting on NFL win totals, the first thing that I tell them is that it takes months of preparation before I place a single dollar down on a given team.

In fact, preparation for one NFL season begins in the season prior. During any given season I am constantly making notes and looking ahead to how teams will be perceived at the end of the year. There are some NFL clubs that you can tell are just playing way over their heads and will be overvalued and overrated heading into the next year. Still, other teams are forced to endure excruciating seasons full of bad luck, fluke plays and the general insanity that draws most fans to the sport to begin with.

I will give you an example. In 2016 the New Orleans Saints were the epitome of a hard-luck 7-9 team. They lost their opener because of a blatant blown fourth-down call. They lost another game because of a blocked extra point returned for a two-point conversion. And several more losses came in heartbreaking fashion. I recall thinking during that season that the Saints were much better than their record would eventually indicate, and I pegged them as a potential bounce-back candidate in 2017.

I put my money where my mouth was, making the Saints my biggest futures wager in 2017. And sure enough, they sailed over their NFL win total (8.5) with an 11-5 campaign.

Of course, that's just one of about two dozen tips I have to beat NFL season win totals. (Start thinking about them the year before.) But there are several other important factors to consider when lining up what is generally a player's first wager of the season. And being able to successfully beat the NFL season win total market is crucial because there is a direct correlation between overall against the spread profitability for the season and how teams fared against their preseason Las Vegas win totals. In fact, over the past decade roughly 80 percent of teams that beat or failed to beat their NFL win total finished with a corresponding winning or losing ATS record for the year.

Nfl Bets For Today

So if you can beat Las Vegas' first football offering - the NFL season win totals - then you can set yourself up for an outstanding football betting year against the spread.

Below are three simple tips for establishing a strong perspective on how to play Vegas NFL win totals. And once you establish which teams are going up and which are going down then you have a decided advantage when the pads start to crack:

1. Bet the playoff teams to go 'under' their NFL season win total.

Six teams are going back and six are staying home. That is generally how the NFL postseason has worked over the course of the last dozen years: approximately half of the playoff field will make it back the following January, while the other half will spend New Year's wondering where it all went wrong.

While essentially an equal split make it back to the playoffs, a majority of teams that make the postseason don't beat their NFL season win total the following year. Over the course of the past decade, teams that make the playoffs are just 52-68 against their win total the following season. While that 56.7 percent success rate doesn't sound very sexy, you can boost it up to a clean 60 percent system by simply eliminating the one team that you should never bet against: the New England Patriots.

Deduct the 8-2 mark for the Patriots, and bettors are 66-44 by wagering against playoff teams. At an average of -110 for those futures, a $500 bettor would be up around $10,000 over the past decade following this simple tip.

2. Be aware of how teams performed in close games the previous season.

With the level of parity in the NFL, the margin of error for teams is razor-thin. One play - a bad snap, a tipped pass, a blown call - can mean the difference between winning and losing. As a result, teams that either win or lose a significant amount of close games one year are usually due to have things go the other way the following season.

The magic number for our net close losses system is 4.0. You can calculate a value for close losses by subtracting the losses in games decided by six points or less from the wins in those close games. For instance, if a team went 5-1 in close games then their net close wins value is +4. If they went 2-4 then they are -2.

Teams that finished +4 or better are due for a regression and likely to finish 'under' their NFL win total the next year. Any team that finished -4 or worse in net close losses generally bounces back the following season and beats its win projection. Bet these teams accordingly.

Over the course of the last five years, this system would've gone 22-11, an outstanding 67 percent success rate. Going back to 2005, this system has gone an exceptional 68-38, a 64.1 percent winning percentage over a 13-year period.

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3. Bet against last year's biggest overachievers and underachievers.

The magic number for this system is 4.0 wins, and the principle is similar to my net close wins system. Teams that beat their NFL win total by four or more games one season are one that we want to fade the following year. Conversely, teams that come up short of their Las Vegas season win total by four or more are squads that you want to bet 'over' the following fall.

The underlying theory behind this is sound. And it fits into our general themes for betting NFL win totals. When a team 'comes out of nowhere' and has a big season it can lead to a playoff berth. That will already make that team overrated going into the next season. But those teams usually make their move based on winning a lot of close games, which also puts them in a regression situation the following year.

Las Vegas generally doesn't miss by much with their numbers. But when they do, they tend to overreact to those outliers by overcorrecting the following season.

Over the last three years this system is only 13-11. However, between 2005-2017 this system has produced at a solid 58.9 percent, going 56-39.

Carpe diem. Good luck.

Robert Ferringo has been the top football handicapper in the country the past seven years, earning nearly $28,000 in total football profit. He has also posted seven of nine winning seasons (including back-to-back winning years) and produced 26 of 41 winning football months and an amazing 45 of 70 winning football months over the past decade. Robert has eight of 10 winning NFL preseasons and he is at nearly 60 percent winners over his last 900 totals picks. Also, Robert's proprietary KING College Football Betting System has posted three of five winning seasons. Robert is looking for a third straight winning football year and wants more profit this fall. SIGN UP HERE TODAY AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR 3-FOR-1 FOOTBALL SPECIALS!

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Are you getting bored of simply betting on who will win the game each time? Change it up and bet on the total instead. Total betting is essentially a 50/50 proposition on whether the total points scored by both teams will go over or under the bookmaker’s posted total.

Also known as over/under betting, this type of wager is available on almost any sport you can think of: football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer to name a few. Hockey, as we explain in this article, is perhaps the best sport for profitable totals betting, as it’s the easiest one for handicapping totals. That doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made by betting the total for the other sports mentioned though.

In this article we cover how to price betting totals, and provide a number of other strategies for using this type of wager effectively.

Recommended Reading

If you’re not yet familiar with how this type of wager works, please see our beginner’s guide to totals betting.

Pricing Betting Totals

Again, we’ll point out that it’s much easier to handicap totals betting in hockey than with any other sport. This simple formula should be enough to help you make a rough prediction for how many goals will be scored in a hockey game.

For baseball, all sorts of other factors come into play. The starting pitcher, how batters have performed against pitchers with similar stats, today’s lineup and the bullpen all have to be considered. Technically, when it comes to baseball there’s a lot more useful data to work with, which means making more precise predictions is a strong possibility. However, interpreting all of that data correctly in order to make valid judgments is easier said than done.

A challenge we face for football betting is that there are simply not enough games in the season to get an accurate figure using points scored and points allowed alone. For this, the first adjustment required is to use medians not averages. Looking to this set of numbers: 3, 7, 15, the median is 7 and the average is 8.33.

How do you apply this to betting football totals? When calculating points scored and points allowed, place each into a list in ascending order. The number in the middle is your median, and you can use that number in conjunction with the league average to find your estimated points scored in a game.

Here are the calculations required to do this.

The problem here is that this model is far too simplistic to yield long-term profits. No matter how simple the sport, you’ll need to make other adjustments.

Of course, if handicapping totals were easy then the market would dry up and there would be no profit left. So, if you’re ambitious, the fact that they are hard can be an advantage for you.

Alternative to Pricing Totals

Rather than learning how to price totals, a good strategy for the ambitious beginner is learning predictive modeling.

How To Bet Nfl Win Totals Today

There’s a good article on this in the book shown here, Conquering Risk: Attacking Vegas and Wall Street by Elihu D. Feustel. This book can be purchased on Amazon. It’s the perfect read for those interested in advanced fundamentals.

Now for those who don’t want to wait for the book, we continue with more helpful advice on total betting.

Understanding Key Numbers

When projecting betting totals, it’s important to understand key numbers. For example, in NFL football, the most common total points scored, in order, are as follows.

  • 41
  • 43
  • 37
  • 44
  • 51
  • 33
  • 47

Knowing this we’d be far more likely to bet over 41 when our model predicted 41.3 than we would be willing to bet under 41 when our model predicted 40.7. While 40 is still a rather common outcome, 39 and 38 are very low probability totals. Over 41 gives us a push on the most common outcome and a win on the second and fourth most common outcomes.

Off Market Prices & Bonuses

With the information just given, there’s a relatively straightforward way to profit from betting NFL totals. The goal is to take advantage of sports betting bonuses and off market prices simultaneously.

What you need to understand is, as mentioned in our article on how to handicap the market, there’s two distinct types of sports betting sites. Sharp books, which are betting sites friendly to professionals, and square books, which are betting sites that target recreational bettors.

It’s also important to understand fan bias. NFL fans typically prefer to bet in favor of something happening rather than against something happening. In other words, betting the over is a lot more fun than betting the under. This leads to recreational betting sites often padding the total an extra 0.5 points, thus making the line worse for bettors wagering on the over.

On the other hand, this means that those who are betting on the under have an advantage. The line for the under will be better.

Recreational sites often have total disregard, or might even be unaware of, the implication of key numbers. Remember the most common total points scored in NFL games we mentioned earlier? If you were to shop a recreational site against a square book looking for spots, here’s what you’d probably find: the sharp book offering a 47.0 betting total and the recreational site offering a 47.5 betting total. You’d quickly see that the under bet at 47.5 is close to neutral expected value.

When you’re lucky enough to find a near neutral EV bet while also having a bonus, chances are high that you’ll be able to make considerable profits by betting totals.

How To Bet Nfl Win Totals 2019

Further Information

Please see our article on sports betting bonuses and rewards for more information on the extra value you can get at online betting sites.

Making Correlated Wagers

One way to gain maximum value when total betting is to consider if there’s a correlation between the total bet you’re making and a game’s point spread. For instance, let’s say you’re betting the under based on the fact that Ben Roethlisberger is playing with less than 100% health, and you believe the Steelers will run the ball and eat the clock.

Now, if the Steelers are -7.5 favorites in the game, then maybe your opinion that the game will go under also means their opponent is more likely to cover the +7.5 point spread. When this is the case, we suggest betting the point spread and the total together in a parlay bet.

Odds or Evens

To state what to many is probably obvious, in certain sports, even and odd number totals make a huge difference. This relates to low scoring sports such as baseball, hockey, and in certain cases soccer. Keep in mind that in baseball and hockey, if a game ends in a tie, it keeps going until the tie is broken. Since ties always represent an even amount of points, it’s clear to see why an odd total outcome is more likely to occur than an even total outcome.

How does this relate to soccer? In some circumstance, like elimination tournaments for example, soccer games aren’t allowed to end in a tie. In such matches, a total betting line of 2.5 has only four ways for the under to win. These are 0-1, 1-0, 0-2, and 2-0.

Notice that the only way for the under bet to win is for a shutout to happen. We’ve actually found occasional arbitrage bets (bets where you can bet multiple sides of a game to guarantee a win) just from taking this into consideration.

Please Note

Totals wagers placed on soccer matches where a tie must be broken often only take the first 90 minutes of normal time into account. In that case, there would actually be six possible scorelines for the under to win. 0-0 and 1-1 would also be possibilities.

Nfl Season Win Totals

Avoiding Suckers Bets

We can’t stress enough the importance of avoiding sucker bets. For example, making teaser bets on totals is a long-term losing proposition that is better off avoided. What else do suckers do? They forget to shop around for the best lines.

Remember, as mentioned earlier, recreational betting sites will often shade lines or adjust odds to make things worse for those wagering on the more popular selections. This is to trap “fish” – the bettors that tend to lose frequently because they DO make sucker bets.

Top Tip

If you don’t want to be a fish, please check out our article on sucker bets and how to avoid them.