College football is embedded into the American way of life. It is woven through the fabric of the community and it unifies and divides the public at the same time. It ties together tradition and innovation like few other parts of our society. The history of college football reflects the trials and tribulations of the American life. It is an institution that commands the greatest respect and unlike pro sport, the focus remains heavily on the team and the fans.
It is for these reasons that betting on college football is different to all other sports. The manner in which a bettor should approach their college football investments needs to be different to that of the NFL or any other major world wide sport. College football is its own beast and to slay that beast you need your own unique set of weapons.
This article will focus on how to take on the college football moneyline with success.
What is the College Football Moneyline? The Moneyline market requires the bettor to pick the outright winner. For the bet to payout, the selected team simply needs to win, regardless of margin or points total. Odds are adjusted based on the sportsbook’s determination of the likelihood of a team winning. Using American odds the favorite is at minus odds (eg -140) and the underdog is at plus odds (eg +130).
Outright Winner
The most fundamental aspect of college football moneyline betting is that it focuses on picking the outright winner of a game. This is the most pure form of betting. It simply asks you to answer the question “who will win?”.
The Moneyline factors in overtime and therefore there is no push. With college football using overtime to break deadlocks, there will always be a winner and a loser. This can be heartbreaking if you are on the receiving end of a bad overtime loss. There is no payout for getting close. A win is a win and a loss is a loss.
How to Read the College Football Moneyline Odds
American Odds
The most common form of odds used to frame the moneyline market are American odds. These use a system of plus and minus money. The best way to describe this is through the use of an example.
Let’s imagine the Ohio State Buckeyes were scheduled to play the Michigan Wolverines in their traditional Thanksgiving Day weekend match up.
Hypothetically the following odds may be posted:
| Team | Moneyline Odds |
| Michigan Wolverines | +120 |
| Ohio State Buckeyes | -140 |
In the above example there are a number of pieces of information which are useful to the bettor.
- The first thing is that the Buckeyes are at home as they are listed second. In American betting the home team is always listed last which is a throw to baseball where the home team always bats second and is therefore listed last on the scoreboard. In other parts of the world the home team is listed first.
- The second piece of useful information is that the Buckeyes are also favored to win by the sportsbooks. This is because they are at minus odds of -140.
The bettor must bet $140 to win a profit of $100, about a 71% return on their money. If the Buckeyes were to lose, the bettor would lose their entire stake for a loss of $100.
Betting long term on the Buckeyes in this situation would mean the bettor needs them to win 58.58% of the time to break even.
- The third piece of information is that the Wolverines are underdogs. Probably partly because they are on the road and partly because of other factors like recent form and player match ups.
A bettor can tell they are underdogs because they are at plus money odds of +120. This means bettor would win $120 profit for a $100 stake representing a better than double their money return. Hence they are at plus odds.
A bettor who invests long term on Michigan at these odds would require them to win 45.45% of the time to break even, much less than the 71% required for Buckeyes bettors.
Knowing this math makes it easier to understand the college football moneyline market .
Other College Football Moneyline Odds Types
The most common alternate form of moneyline odds (and perhaps the easiest to understand) is decimal odds. This odds style converts the odds to a multiplication factor to represent total return. The above example would now look like this:
| Team | Moneyline Decimal Odds |
| Michigan Wolverines | 2.20 |
| Ohio State Buckeyes | 1.71 |
While these odds represent identical value to the above American odds they remove one step of math for the bettor which makes life a little easier.
Simply put, if a bettor wagered $100 on the Wolverines they would receive 2.20 times that money in total return (stake and profit). So $220.
If they wagered the same $100 on the Buckeyes at 1.71 they would receive 1.71 times that money in total return, so $170 for a profit of $70.
Most major online and mobile sportsbooks have functionality that allows the bettor to swap between American and decimal odds. The default Style will be American, but if you are more comfortable with the decimal version you can simply change that in your preferences. We prefer decimal but see much value in understanding American odds as mainstream US media almost exclusively uses that form.
Want to know how to bet futures markets? This is how its done!
Moneyline Betting Takeaways
Moneyline is Less Popular than the Point Spread
It’s important to make note that most of the time when the general public talk about college football betting, they refer to the point spread market. That is the market that handicaps teams so that the favorite is ‘giving away points’ and the underdog is ‘receiving points’. The winning bet is the one that wins based on the applied handicap. Essentially this makes the game a coin flip and the odds reflect this although they don’t quite pay the full doubling of stake.
Why the Point Spread? Because college football is full of huge mismatches. That is powerhouse nationally ranked teams playing against unranked, less cashed up programs, who simply can’t recruit the same depth of talent as their opponents.
Does this make the moneyline pointless? Absolutely not! Uspsets can and do happen on a weekly basis in college football. The secret is to find those potential upsets; identify the danger game for fancied teams, and bet accordingly.
The TakeAway: College athletes are not professionals. There are many times more college teams than pro teams and as a result, strange and unpredictable things happen. It’s part of the allure of college football.
Use this to your advantage. Look for plus money odds on moneyline bets, particularly on teams with a smaller supporter base. The betting public loves a favorite, especially a well known one. Betting on a favorite requires no thinking and recreational bets flock to those markets. This throws up value opportunities for the bettor on the other side of the market.
Carefully selected Moneyline underdogs can pay useful dividends. Betting at the plus money means your required strike rate for profitability is low. Know the math behind the odds and be brave, but make it calculated bravery.
Home Underdogs are Take Some Beating
The passion of college football fans is intense. The fans are all in on their team and the players respond to that parochialism. A favored team on the road, in the hostile cauldron of a campus football stadium, can often find themselves in an ambush.
This ambush can be intensified when extreme weather, which the locals are accustomed too, is added in the mix. Be it snow, windchill or extreme heat and humidity, a team must compete in all conditions and college football throws up all kinds. It’s just not easy to play your best in unfamiliar and trying conditions. Weather extremes can be too much to handle. The bottom line, outside of the elite programs, road wins difficult to come by.
The TakeAway: Be on the lookout for a home team ambush. A good sense of the uniqueness of college home fields and atmosphere can help you sniff out some moneyline value.
This doesn’t mean you should just look underdogs exclusively. Value is what you get for the price you pay. Maybe a home team is favored but you feel their odds are longer they should be. If that is the case get a piece of them and let the home ground be your secret sauce!
Don’t Just Focus on Win/Loss Record
It seems counterintuitive to be betting the moneyline and then take your focus off the win/loss record of the teams involved. After all the moneyline is about picking an outright winner.
Here’s the thing though; teams with seemingly unimpressive records can be building towards a win and yet go unnoticed by the odd makers and betting public. Teams work hard all season to improve and as they bank more gametime young players can be on sharp learning curves.
Over the course of a month a team can improve immensely. Be it with better defensive structure or more effective offensive plays teams can go from uncompetitive to tough to beat. That’s the beauty of sport. It always throws up next week and next game might just be the day it all clicks.
The TakeAway: When betting college football moneylines dig deeper than a superficial win loss record. Look at margins of defeat, is there an improving trend? Maybe a team with a winning record has started to allow more points as their offensive schemes are broken down? Perhaps a new quarterback is finding his feet aT college level, extending plays, keeping his offense the field longer and as a result his team is staying in games longer.
There will be hidden trends and sometimes these are the things that alert the bettor to some potential Moneyline value. College football is still a development league. Bet accordingly.
Know Your College Football Moneyline Parlay Options
The Moneyline parlay is always fun and can offer a bettor a potentially larger return for a small outlay. There is always plenty of argument over the value of parlays but if they are used correctly they are a fantastic addition to any bettors repertoire.
College football Moneyline and Parlays are a match made in heaven! With some large mismatches around the nation on a weekly basis there is some value in carefully selecting some moneyline favorites and bundling them up into one parlay bet. Three or four added together can build the Parlays odds out into plus money and a useful return.
Another strategy is to find a couple of Moneyline underdogs and pair them up to take the parlay odds out well over the +400 mark. That way a small stake can become an account booster. Whatever parlay betting method a bettor takes,needs to fit the risk profile of the bettor.
School of bets has a list of 14 hot tips on how to win more parlay bets. That article can be applied to college football and will fine tune your parlay game.
The TakeAway: Use the Moneyline to your advantage when betting parlays on college football. It’s the only way to truly build a parlay that represents value. With so many games on any given weekend, you are awash with options. Get schooled on parlays and add it to your Moneyline betting game plan!
The Game Starts Now!
College football is fun in its own right. Learning to be bet the moneyline just adds to the entertainment. The best way to learn is to begin. Have a go, start small as your experience grows so too will your success.
Good Luck and as always, bet responsibly!
