NFL betting lines refer to a specific styles of bets made on NFL games. There are two basic types of bets that are made on just about every type of game: money line bets and spread bets. There are a few key differences between these two types of bets, although both of them separate the teams playing a given game into two a favourite (the team expected to win the game) and an underdog (the team expected to lose). The main differences between NFL betting lines and spread bets are how the bets relate to the favourite and underdog.
Money line bets are essentially fixed odds betting that have gamblers bet on a team to win a game outright. When bookmakers look at the two teams that will be competing in a given game, they try to give each team odds that reflect its chances of winning. This means that, except in the rare cases when teams are evenly matched and there is neither a favourite nor an underdog, the favourite will get better odds than the underdog. For example, NFL betting lines for a game between the Green Bay Packers and the Denver Broncos, with the Green Bay Packers expected to win. The NFL betting lines for the game might look something like this:
Green Bay: -250
Denver: 200
This would mean that a bet on the Green Bay Packers would require two hundred and fifty dollars in order to pay out one hundred dollars, because of the relatively low chance that they will lose. On the other hand, a bet of one hundred dollars on the Denver Broncos would pay out two hundred dollars, because of the low chance of them winning. Measuring risk versus reward when it comes to NFL betting lines is key.
NFL betting lines are very different from spread betting, which is a type of betting in which bookmakers try to even the odds that a bet on either team will pay out. While with NFL betting lines you have one team that is generally favoured, and thus pays less on a winning bet, and another that is less favoured and pays more on a win, spread bets pay out the same because they are designed to give a bet on either team a fifty percent chance of winning. This is done by providing the underdog with a point handicap in betting, so in the previous example Denver would be given a certain number of points. If Denver lost, but by less than that point handicap, bets on Denver would pay out but bets on Green Bay would not.
