The NFL has deep attraction to sports bettors the world over, but it is notoriously difficult to cut a profit long term. The following is a list of 8 bankroll busting traps that bettors must avoid if they are to have a long career wagering on the NFL.
1. Taking Road Favorites in The First 5 Weeks
One of the components of the NFL that make it a wonderful spectator sport is the evenness of the competition. The robust salary cap and draft process serves to level up the competition from week to week. There are obvious exceptions to this, like the New England Patriots of recent times, where a generational quarterback can overcome the challenges of the competition evenness and deliver long term success. This is clearly rare.
As a result of the off season player movements brought about by the salary cap and draft restrictions, the form guide at the beginning of the season is sporadic at best. Often odds are based on last years win-loss record, predictions about the effectiveness of player recruitment and the historical match-up record between the two sides. An inexact science at best.
While all of these things are valid and may be able to be used as some kind of guide, the fact is they divide opinion. Often they contradict each other and in the end the analysis becomes more guesswork than anything else.
On top of this lack of current and truly relevant data, home teams historically win 57% of the time in the NFL. This is a long term average with very little variation over the journey. Yes some teams are good road teams, others inexplicably perform poorly at home, but the long term average says 5.7 times out of 10 the home team wins.
It is for these reasons that, before true season specific form is established, bettors should be avoiding wagering on any road favorites unless the reason is truly compelling. Never say never, and weigh each game up on its merits, but as a rule, avoid the favorite as they enter the road ambush. The alternative being bet on the home underdog. Again assess each match on its merits but a never fear a wager on a home dog in the first 5 weeks (or throughout the season).
After a quarter of the season, around week 5, the flow of money tends to become more accurate and as a result sportsbook odds are typically a bit more zeroed in.
The Take Home Tip: The first five weeks of the NFL season are when sportsbooks find it hardest to frame odds accurately. Backing the favorite at this time of year is risky business. Betting on a road favorite is courageous but fraught with danger.
2. Recency Bias
Recency bias occurs when a person remembers something that happened more recently than events that occurred further back in time. In doing so they attribute more importance to the most recent event and hence it has the most influence on their decision making. This occurs all the time in sport betting.
This recency effect and the bias that comes with it is deceptively hard to self identify. We have all fallen guilty of it at some point in time and often without realizing. For example it is so easy to remember a team turning the ball over 5 times and losing by three scores last week, that when we look at this weeks games we make our betting decisions based on the insipid showing of the week before. Weeks previous to that the team may have valued their possession and performed much more strongly.
The reality is the team with the turnover issue has most likely spent the next 6 days analyzing the root cause of those issues and eradicating them on the practice field. Further to this the turnovers may have been as a result of exceptional defensive reads from last week’s opponent. This weeks opponent may not be able to effect the same defensive pressure and as a result the scoreline could be hugely different.
A recency bias would overlook some of these factors and simply figure last week’s poor performance will translate to a similar showing this week. Be wary this is not always the case, in fact it is more often the opposite.
A Take Home Tip: Watch how teams finish games. Even if they were blown out early in a game and the result was a foregone conclusion, the way they finish the game is often an excellent insight into how they will start next week. The same can be said for a team that has a match wrapped up early and allows junk time points. That lacklustre finish can leak into next week.
3. Betting on a Team’s Winning Streak
Continuous winning streaks are rare in the NFL. Teams will often put two or three on end but to maintain a streak for a month or more is increasingly difficult. The brutal nature of the NFL sees players bodies battered and bruised week in week out. The war of attrition means a team will turn over playing personnel and/or have players on the field carrying injuries. Any sign of weakness in the NFL means a loss is coming.
Further to the injury toll opposition coaches work winning teams out because it is so obvious to see what is working. Stopping it may be hard but over time they see what other teams have attempted and make adjustments. This is detrimental to a winning streak.
The team on the streak has to be able to adapt to continue winning. Adapt or die. Usually its die within the month.
In the 2018 season the best winning percentage was 79%, which equates to a loss once in every 5 games. The majority of teams finished with records of between 400 and 600, basically winning and losing in similar proportions. That data points to the death of a winning streak being sooner rather than later.
The Take Home Tip: If a team is on a three match winning streak, don’t jump in and bet on the streak to continue. The value is on the opponent, who has time to come up with a game plan and importantly is probably at juicy odds!
4. Checking the Odds When Checking Out the Schedule
It is so easy to do. When wanting to know the week’s lineup of games many bettors simply jump on their sportsbook app and go to that week’s NFL markets. While this is simple and convenient, it is hugely detrimental to the process of finding value.
It is impossible to look at the lineup of games on the app without seeing the current odds. For any sports bettor the odds give a quick and easy, almost subconscious insight into the what the outcome of the game may be. In a way this is misinformation. It allows the odds makers opinion of the favored result to enter your thought process and no longer are you having totally independent thoughts on the game.
What misinformation can serve to do, in all walks of life, is have you change your decision to something you might not have previously run with. In betting this can be a fatal error. You need to be able to back yourself, your knowledge, your read and your experience.
Just because the flow of money, or the consensus, leans towards a particular outcome, doesn’t mean that it will happen. Seeing odds before you look at a game tends to draw bettors towards the favorite. It leads to self doubt like the “they must know something that I don’t” mentality. This is cancer for a bettor.
The Take Home Tip: Read the weeks schedule of games before seeing the odds. Do you own analysis. At the very least frame some ballpark odds. That way when you see what is on offer, you can decide whether true value exists.
5. Listening to the Crowd
The great Warren Buffet says about investing in the stock market, “be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy”.
A famous quote which points to the skill of being a contrarian. Thinking the opposite to the general consensus. This can and should be applied to the world of betting on the NFL.
There is no doubt there are teams in the NFL that have large followings across the country and the globe. The Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys to name a few. The large number of fans of these teams drive their moneyline odds and points spread line below what would could reasonably be expected to be fair value. It is simply weight of money.
The same could be said for teams who by the middle part of the season have put together a strong winning record. Weight of money from less sophisticated bettors who simply love to bet on a favorite means their odds are reduced. Value is lacking.
This type of ‘follow the hype’ betting is a huge trap for beginning and less aware NFL bettors. The worst part of this situation, which links back to Warren Buffet’s quote, is that by betting on the fan favorite team not only are you accepting below value odds, you’re ignoring the real value that exists on their opponent.
The Take Home Tip: The vast majority of sports bettors in the long run lose money. Listening to, and following the crowd, is not a successful betting system and nor will it ever be so. Be a contrarian and bet against the people.
For all you need to know about ‘Fading The Public’ check out our article here!
6. Betting Parlays Using the Points Spread
Parlays are notorious for skewing the multiplied odds further in the favor of the bookmakers and as such, offering less value for the bettor. One of the more popular NFL parlay types is to link two or more points spread bets from across the week’s games. This gives the illusion of generous odds and yet its is the bookmakers whose edge grows.
Parlay bets grouping the moneyline are not as much of an issue as long as the selected options represent real value. That is a subjective decision for the bettor, but the fun factor of parlays, not to mention some of the generous promotions sports books offer, tend to attract bettors to this type of bet.
The Take Home Tip: Avoid parlays which bundle up the points spread. Parlays are difficult to land at the best of times, giving away a heap of juice in the process makes profitability a literal long shot.
7. Blowing Your Account Up Early in the Season
The first step for a sports bettor targeting the NFL is to not go broke. The relatively small amount of games in a regular season means the sportsbooks have tight lines and finding value can be hard, even for the pros. Loose bet staking systems or no system at all can see a bettors bankroll blow up before thanksgiving. Not ideal.
The mistake here is to approach the season without some staking theory in mind. Budgeting for a bet size, and sticking to it, is crucial in managing your bankroll and being able to ride out the downturns. If the bet size is too large then a small run of losses and bad beats can send you to the wall in no time.
The Take Home Tip: Devote some time in the preseason to establishing a staking strategy which gives you the best chance of betting after the new year. This is not about approaching the season expecting to lose, but it is about creating a strategy of resilience to survive until profitability arrives.
8. Analysis Paralysis
Reading too much into statistics is a problem. Yes, statistics are a great way to measure many aspects of a game, but the correlation between winning and losing is overstated on many of them. You can spend hours pouring over statistics in order to build a case for a particular bet but often these statistics are used to reinforce an already held opinion and therefore they have little effect. The end result is more confusion than revelation.
Many moderately successful NFL betting models lose effectiveness over time as the game evolves and teams refine their offensive and defensive systems. The statistical analysis also changes to accommodate but is often reactive and lags behind what is actually happening. Statistics tell a story, but often it’s the story of last week and not this week.
The 24 hour NFL news cycle sees endless analysis show almost create statistics to tell a story or create a narrative. Much of that is noise which is more about entertainment than actual football. Cut out the noise.Statistics often fail to measure the intangibles that come from team cohesion, motivation, desperation and pure class. Sometimes less analysis and more observation of the game flow gives a clearer mindset of where and how to bet.
The Take Home Tip: Spend less time bogged down in statistical analysis of components of the game that have limited predictive effect on the outcome of the game. Reduce the noise and clearer judgement will follow.
The Game Starts Now!
The NFL is a difficult proposition for any bettor. By limiting mistake you give youself the best chance of turning some hard earned cash into a bonanza of cash. Best of luck!
