College football is arguably the best sport to bet because data is very accessible yet it’s hard for bookmakers to make sharp lines because there are just so many games. There are 130 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision teams and a typical Saturday slate of college football can include upward of 60 games. Even the sharpest sportsbooks—including BetMGM—have weak spots. Here’s a look at some of the options you have for cashing tickets on college football bets:

College football betting: Ways to bet

The Bassett football model is a system for ranking the relative strengths of football teams. A key feature of this model is that it recognizes that if two teams could play more than once the same team would not always win (there is an element of chance involved). College Football Props & Futures Betting. There are an increasing number of prop betting and futures betting markets for college football. These can include things like over/under season win totals, odds to win the National Championship or a conference title, the Heisman Trophy, other individual player/coach awards, or division futures. College Football Betting - College football betting and handicapping forum: discuss football picks, NCAAF odds, and predictions.

The key to wagering successfully in college football spread betting is to decide early how many points you’re willing to lay with Favorites and to get in at the lowest possible spot. If you’re going to back the Underdog, make sure you’re getting the most points. Nov 21, 2020 If you want to make some money betting on college football, you better be on the right side of the line. That means if the underdog is +4.5 on most sites but is +5 on one site, you better be getting the +5 number. Lines fluctuate throughout the day as bets come in.

Access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list of today’s sports betting odds and lines.

Futures: These wagers are for events decided well after the bet has been placed. A Futures bet in college football would be betting on who will win the 2021 College Football National Champion, Big Ten Conference, Heisman Trophy, etc. One of my favorite futures bets are Over/Under team win totals. As in, betting Over Clemson Tigers 11.5 regular-season wins (not an actual line, just an example).

College Football Betting Online

Game sides: It’s the most common bet in sports. Which team do you like to win the game and, if necessary, by how many points? You can bet a team to win outright with a moneyline wager or for a team to cover the point spread, at BetMGM‘s listed odds.Game totals: This is a wager on the final score of the game. For instance, you’d bet Over/Under 67.5 total points in USC Trojans at Oregon Ducks. The bettor takes either the Over or the Under on BetMGM‘s listed total. You can also look to bet team totals, which is the line set on how many points a single team is projected to put up. Back to our earlier example, Oregon’s mock team total would be 38 and USC’s is 29.5 for a total of 67.5. Which total would you take in our sample total line?Prop bets: Here is where you wager on smaller occurrences during a college football game, like how many rushing yards a running back will have or an Over/Under for the longest passing play for a team. An example prop bet is “Over/Under 215.5 passing yards for Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence against the Virginia Tech Hokies.”Live betting: BetMGM is listing live odds on the sides and totals throughout a college football game. If you feel like you’ve got the flow of a conference rivalry game down somewhere in the second quarter, make a live bet.Parlay: One of the juicier bets, a parlay is a wager where two or more bets have to win for the ticket to cash. The more bets/teams/totals included in the parlay, the bigger the payout. Bettors like correlated parlays where you bet a team and a total to get a better payout. You could also rip off a four-team parlay by combining games in the 12 p.m. ET, 3 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. ET and 10 p.m. ET slots.

College football betting: Key betting terms to know

Moneyline: These are the odds set by BetMGM on a team to win the game straight up. The moneyline for the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship was LSU Tigers -228 and Clemson Tigers +185. A $228 wager on the LSU -228 moneyline earned a $100 profit when the Tigers beat Clemson, 42-25.Point spread: Theline, thepoints, thespread, thenumber are all other ways to refer to how many points a team needs to win by or cannot lose by. For example, if the Oklahoma Sooners are -6.5 at the Texas Longhorns then you can wager on Oklahoma and win if the Sooners win by seven or more points. If Texas stays within 6 points in a loss or wins outright, then its side of the bet would win and a bet on Oklahoma would be lost.Over/Under: This could be used when discussing the total but also for player and game props or futures. It’s as simple as betting the Over or the Under on BetMGM‘s listed odds for let’s say the Pac-12 title game point totalor 2020 passing yards for Ohio State QB Justin Fields as a season prop.Push: Tie, chop, draw, Kiss Your Sister, whatever you want to call it. Sometimes a push feels like a miracle, sometimes it feels like a bad beat but it’s never a loss or a win. It’s just, meh. You get your money back, which I would bet on the Pac-12 Saturday night game.Key numbers:

College Football Betting Lines

Since touchdowns (seven) and field goals (three) are the most common increment of scores, those are also the biggest key numbers. Ten, 17, 24 are also in this group. You’ll hear “sharps” talk about key numbers in their handicaps—like betting favorites at -2.5 or -6.5 and betting underdogs at +3.5 or +7.5—so familiarize yourself with the lingo, and the math.

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Bet Lines On College Football

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