How To Bet On Football Legally

Arguably the most exciting regular season in any sport is that of college football. It's because each game is almost like a playoff game, where one loss on the season could be the difference between a shot at a national championship, and just another bowl game. To make things even more exciting though is the ability to bet legally on NCAA football. This always adds a little fuel to the already burning fire of excitement.

1. Bet On Football Games Legally
2. How To Bet On Football Games
3. How To Bet Football Online

Legal college football betting online is one of the best ways to place a wager on the sports, with many sites open to a variety of bettors for maximum exposure. Because of the fact that licensed land-based sportsbooks occur in only two states, the vast majority are going to be looking for other opportunities.

Just like the NFL, NCAA college football’s most common bet is a point spread. This type of bet equalises the opportunity of winning a bet. The line, or point spread, for college football, is usually released days. You can bet on it: Sports gambling is about to expand, big time, in the United States. Right now, the only place you can legally bet on sports is Nevada.

Is It Legal To Bet On NCAA Football Games?

We touched upon this area in the introduction, and we want to talk about it because there are some potential misconceptions about what can be bet legally and what cannot. Betting on college football is legal to do in certain situations. The first situation is a wager placed at a land-based sportsbooks. Here though, there are just two states in which this can be done. That would be Nevada (Las Vegas obviously), and Delaware. Both states do sports betting different as well.

Bet On Football Games Legally

Secondly, bettors can place legal NCAA football wagers online through the use of sports betting sites. But what you should know is that online sportsbooks are banned in the United States. The legal offshore sites in which betting can be done are found elsewhere. They are very easy to access though, and to make a real-money bet.

Legal College Football Betting Sites

Betting on college football can encompass plenty of potential wagers that can be made. Obviously the games and week-to-week matchup might be the biggest pool of lines, but there are things outside of those as well. Perhaps no two betting sites cover college football odds better than the ones you are about to read about further below.

How well does Bovada cover college football? Visit the site at any point in the offseason and check in on Heisman trophy odds and BCS Championship betting lines, though that will soon switch to college football playoff championship odds. No matter when you check out Bovada, there will be some legal NCAA football wagers to make. And when it gets into the regular season then you are really in for a treat.

Bovada is our favorite sports betting site to place wagers on college football at for many reasons, led off by the fact that it is legal to do so, combined with the sheer number of betting lines available. We suggest that you visit Bovada today, and see which lines interest you.

Legal betting on NCAA football is widely available at SportsBetting. Among the many sports covered on site, college football certainly gets a great amount of attention as one of the most popular sections in the sportsbook. Just about every college football game each week is covered, even if the game you are looking for is not in the Top-25.

College football bets on the point spread, moneyline, and over/under point total are available for each matchup, but it also extends into the realm of prop wagers. Both player and team prop betting odds are found by the dozens here, so you can feel confident knowing that this sportsbook covers all NCAA football betting angles.

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More Stuff You Need To Know Before Betting On College Football Games

We recommend that you definitely check out the betting lines to make sure they are what you are looking for with what you have in mind to bet. From there, the sportsbook itself should be somewhere that you are comfortable with. The aspects discussed below come from our experience in getting started with a new account.

Getting Started: How To Find The Right Betting Site + Prepare To Wager

The best advantage that you as the bettor have over the betting sites is the selections. The sportsbooks are trying to get you to place bets with them; you are the one with upper-hand and can look for what you want.

Assuming you find a sportsbook that you like, the first step in the process of getting started would be to make an account with them. To sign up for a new account should take just a couple of minutes to do, in which information validating your identity and correct information is put in.

At sportsbooks like these, you will be betting real money, for which deposits are required to make a bet. Different options will accompany you with different sites, so it's always important to find out the deposit methods before signing up to make sure you have at least one to use from there. And for receiving payouts, the process is quite similar as well. Different choices will be presented, so it's always nice to have a plan for when you do withdrawal later on down the line.

Other Sports You Can Legally Wager On:

Legal college football betting sites can be fun to use during the season, but with just 12 or 13 games depending on if teams make bowls during the season; it's certainly not on the level of wagering opportunities like basketball, hockey and baseball. For when the games are not in session and you are interested in other leagues, check out the different pages that we have as resources on site covering these other sports.

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As legal sports betting rolls out across the US, the biggest slice of the market is betting on the NFL.

Pro football is the most-watched sport in America, and that translates to it being the most bet-on sport as well.

NFL betting sites

Read on for more information about betting on the NFL in 2021 and the market for it in the US.

Where you can legally bet on the NFL in the US

There are more than a dozen states where you can legally bet on NFL football games currently. Here is the list of states where sports betting is legal, or where it has been legalized pending launch (click through to learn more about betting options in any of these states:

Online betting is currently live in these states, which should be the largest markets for sports wagering in short order:

NFL betting in New Jersey

The second biggest market for betting on the NFL is New Jersey, and it will likely surpass Nevada in the near future — possibly in 2020 or 2021.

That’s for several reasons:

• It’s a more open market for online betting — you can register online from anywhere in the state
• New Jersey is also interesting in that it has access to the New York City market; NY only has a few physical sportsbooks upstate. But New Yorkers can cross the river into New Jersey and bet easily.
• Betting on the Giants, Jets and Eagles is popular among New Jersey residents.

There are no shortage of NJ sports betting apps:

• BetAmerica
• Hard Rock
• Bet365

NFL betting in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is the biggest state that has legal sports betting apps. Population centers and football-crazy cities Philadelphia and Pittsburgh create a good starting based for legal sports gambling.

There are only a handful of apps in the state as of September 2019, but more are on the way.

• Parx Sportsbook

NFL betting in Illinois

Illinois is the sixth most populous state in the US, while Chicago is the single largest metropolitan area with legal online sports betting. Sportsbooks are also keen to acquire customers now, while in-person registration is suspended.

There are already a handful of live apps in the state, including:

NFL betting in Colorado

Despite only launching in May, the Colorado market already has a wide range of sportsbooks for betting NFL.

The CO apps live today include:

• BetMonarch
• Circa Sports
• ELITE Sportsbook
• Smarkets
• Sky Ute

NFL betting in West Virginia

West Virginia has two of the major players in online sports betting: DraftKings Sportsbook and FanDuel Sportsbook.

There are also a trio of physical sportsbooks. While betting on West Virginia University is huge, expect a lot of betting on the NFL teams in surrounding states as well.

NFL betting in Nevada

Sports betting has been around for decades in Nevada, and it’s the biggest market for NFL betting right now. Hundreds of millions are wagered on NFL games in Las Vegas and beyond.

While there are more than 100 physical sportsbooks, nearly all of them also have a sports betting app. While the tech in Nevada lags behind other markets, and you have to sign up in person for an app, they are still a good option.

Mobile betting accounts for more than half of all betting — NFL and otherwise — in Nevada.

NFL betting in Iowa

Iowa went live with sports betting in the summer of 2019, rolling out physical sportsbooks and online sports betting apps almost in parallel.

There are already more than a dozen sportsbooks in the state, along with apps that you have to register for at a casino and racetrack.

Legal NFL betting apps vs. illegal offshore apps

If you’re not in one of the states mentioned above, you are not betting at a site that operates legally in the US or in your state.

While many people believe that sports betting became widely legal in 2018, all that happened was the repeal of a federal ban allowing states to legalize sports betting.

So if you want to bet on the NFL, keep in mind where you’re betting. While individual bettors are unlikely to get in trouble for betting at a site that operates outside of the constraints of US law, the sites themselves do run afoul of federal and state law. Despite the fact that these sportsbooks will tell you they are operating legally, that is far from the truth.

If you’re in Nevada, New Jersey and other states that have betting laws, you have a number of regulated choices to choose from. Unfortunately for much of the country, there is no legal option. That includes large states like California and Florida. In New York, you can bet at some upstate sportsbooks but only in-person.

How much do Americans bet on the NFL?

Despite the fact that the NFL has the fewest games of any pro team sport, it’s by far the most popular to bet on.

With a handful of preseason games, 16 in the regular season and then a win-to-advance playoff system, there’s a premium on every game. That dynamic makes the NFL the most popular sport to watch on TV; the Super Bowl every year is the most-watched program on TV in the US.

All of that interest creates a robust market for betting on the NFL in the US, despite the fact that single-game wagering has only been legal in Nevada before 2018. People still find myriad ways of having a monetary interest on the outcome of games, from fantasy sports, to betting against friends, to using illegal offshore sportsbooks.

Gauging how much is bet on the NFL by Americans is tricky because of all that. The American Gaming Association says that 38 million adults will bet on the NFL in 2019.

If you include fantasy and social betting, the number is certainly in the hundreds of millions. If limited to offshore books, the number has been estimated from the tens of billions to $150 billion.

The advent of legal sports betting outside of Nevada will increase all of these figures even more. The NFL, as the country’s most popular sport, will drive betting handle in most states.

When is NFL betting the biggest?

The interest in betting on the NFL usually follows a rhythm, starting out strong before hitting a crescendo in the postseason:

• The first few weeks of the NFL season are usually the biggest in the regular season, outside of weeks that feature several top teams facing off and/or divisional rivalries. Everyone is excited to bet on the NFL when it returns, and that honeymoon usually lasts several weeks.
• Thanksgiving is now a big time to bet on games. With the unidivided attention of NFL fans — at least before dinner is served — there are three games that take place on the holiday every year.
• The end of the season is often a bit slower for betting on the NFL, from attrition of bettors to lack of interest as some teams fall out of the playoff hunt. But that resets as the playoffs begin, with huge numbers of bettors wanting to have action on wild-card games, divisional games and conference championships.
• The Super Bowl is usually the single biggest day for betting at any sportsbook. Tens of millions of people will watch, and many of them have action on the game some way, whether through a sportsbook, a squares competition or a wager with a friend. But as sports betting rolls out in more and more states, expect there to be a lot of betting on the NFL.

Sports betting apps vs. physical sportsbooks for NFL

NFL fans love to watch games at sportsbooks. Nevada has long cashed in on the intersection of betting and lots of TVs, packing sportsbooks in Las Vegas and elsewhere with fans on NFL Sundays.

How To Bet On Football Games

It is usually a good experience, except it can be difficult to get your bet down in-person on a busy Sunday. The lines to place bets in states with legal sports betting are usually extremely long; in states where online betting is legal, it’s far more convenient.

Here’s a bit of a breakdown:

Sports betting app advantages

• Multiple ways to deposit and withdraw funds
• Easier to place bets
• Live betting options — betting while games are going on — is far more robust.
• Convenient to bet from nearly anywhere (as long as you are located in a state where it is legal).
• Deposit bonuses and odds boosts

Physical sportsbook advantages

• Personal contact with a ticket writer
• Can watch nearly every game at a sportsbook
• Free drink tickets are sometimes given at sportsbooks

More about NFL betting odds and lines

If you are betting on the NFL, there are a variety of ways to do so. Here is a quick look at some of the ways:

• Point spread: This is the most common way to bet on NFL games, and is generally the type of bet that sportsbooks see the most of. Here, the sportsbook sets a line that team X will win a game by Y points; for instance, New England could be a three-point favorite at home against the Philadelphia Eagles. If you bet New England at minus-3, you are betting that New England will win by four or more points. If you bet on the Eagles, you are betting that Philly will either win, tie or lose by two or one points.
• Moneyline: This simplest type of bet, a bettor is just picking who will win the game. The confusing part for bettors not used to looking at moneyline odds. Here, a favorite will usually be assigned a negative number, and the underdog a positive number. New England could be a -148 favorite, meaning you need to bet $148 to win $100. Philly could be a +128 underdog, meaning you bet $100 to win $128. Favorites, therefore, return less money than underdogs.
• Totals: Betting on how many points will be scored in an NFL game is another very common bet. Here, the sportsbook sets a line, and you bet whether the two teams will combine to score more or fewer points than that total.
• Futures: There are a variety of ways to bet on future events for the NFL. The most common is to bet on the winner of the Super Bowl. You can also bet on conference champions, division champions, and regular-season win totals among other things.
• Prop betting: Here, a bettor is betting on whether something will or won’t happen in a game. Will Tom Brady pass for 300 yards or more? Will Antonio Brown score two touchdowns? You’re betting on whether the number set by the book.
• Parlays: A bet where you connect more than one outcome into a single bet. For instance, you could combine three point spreads into a single bet that would result in longer odds and an increased payout if the bettor picks all three correctly. These are generally profitable bets for sportsbooks because of the degree of difficulty for the bettor.
• Live betting: Betting on a game while it is in progress is an increasingly popular way to wager. Most of the methods of wagering above are available while games are going on, including spreads based on the current score and time, what players will do during the game, etc.
• Teasers: This is essentially a two-leg parlay that lets you move the point spread or total six points in your favour. For example you could tease two 8.5 point favourites down to -2.5. You normally pay -110 to -120 on a two-team teaser.

How To Bet Football Online

Note that all of these types of winning bets will include vigorish or a commission that the sportsbook charges on winning bets. More on sports betting terms can be found here. And that’s not an exhaustive list of bet types either.