NFL moneyline betting explained

A moneyline bet is a wager on the game's winning team. It doesn’t matter if our team wins by one point, or 25 points, a win is a win in the moneyline world. Conversely, if we take a team to win on the moneyline and it loses, then we lose our wager. NFL teams rarely tie, so each game is a two-way market.

Betting the moneyline is different from betting the spread because teams don’t need to cover a certain number of points to win. The spread is a way to even the playing field between two teams — like a handicap. A huge benefit of betting the moneyline over the spread is we want what our team wants: a win.

Parlaying moneyline favorites (betting on more than one team) is also a common strategy to increase our payout odds. The odds of each of our moneyline picks are multiplied together and then multiplied again by our wager amount to give us our potential winnings.

NFL odds are usually given in American odds (-120, for example). These numbers can be converted to fractional or decimal odds using our bet calculator.

With the rise in popularity of NFL moneyline betting online, there are loads of NFL betting sites available to us. Most football betting sites offer the moneyline as well as spreads, totals, and prop markets.

Once you've signed up to any one of the NFL moneyline betting sites out there that suits you best, find the NFL markets, and look for the moneyline – sometimes abbreviated as ML.

The simplest way of understanding wagering on favorites with American odds is that they are always represented with negative odds, so you’ll see a minus (-) symbol in front of them. When betting on favorites, you also need to bet the number set by the oddsmaker to win $100. For example, at -200, you’d need to bet $200 to win $100 back.

Above, the Dallas Cowboys are (-200), and the New York Giants are +100. If we bet $200 on the Cowboys moneyline, we’d win $100 back with a Cowboys victory.

Underdogs are much easier. They are always represented with positive odds, so you’ll see a plus (+) symbol in front of them. Conversely, you win the number set by the oddsmaker when you bet $100.

Using the same example, if we bet $100 on the New York Giants to win with those +100 odds, we would win $100 with a Giants victory. If they were +180, we would profit $180, and so on.

$100 is the standard measure across NFL betting sites, however, NFL moneyline bettors can bet any amount they feel comfortable with and is within their limits. Our Odds Calculator can help determine how much we’d win based on the amount we wagered.