How to Bet on NFL Games Online: Best Sportsbooks & Strategies

With each passing day, sports betting becomes more popular around the United States. At the forefront of sports betting expansion is the NFL and football.

If you’re tired of hearing about everyone else winning money betting on pro football, you’ve come to the right place. This is the quintessential NFL betting guide for finding the best sportsbooks and bonuses, not to mention important betting strategies.

After reading this, you’ll better understand how to bet on NFL moors betting online online:

Table of Contents

Best NFL Betting Sites

We reviewed online sportsbooks until we needed a timeout because our eyes hurt so bad. And now we’ve compiled a list of the top NFL betting sites just for you:

BetOnline

On top of the $1,000 football betting bonus, BetOnline offers numerous ways to bet on the NFL, including futures, the draft, final standings, win totals, and multiple ways to wager on individual moors betting online. Spread, total, moneyline, and several play props are available.

If you engage in live betting, you’ll find a dedicated live betting interface at BetOnline, making this betting style much more interactive and organized.

BetOnline is No. 1 in the top football betting sites rankings.

Pros

Cons

BetUS

For over 25 years, BetUS has been one of the premier online sportsbooks in the country, especially for the NFL. While Gary Payton, a former NBA star, may be the brand’s ambassador, there’s a dedicated live interface similar to BetOnline and plenty of Week 1 lines for the upcoming NFL season.

BetUS sets itself apart in how well the different bet types are divvied. The site makes betting options easy to find, breaking them down category by category.

Lastly, you can choose an individual team and find all bets offered related to that team.

Pros

Cons

Bovada

Since 2011, Bovada has always been seen as one of the best online sportsbooks, long before the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was overturned in May 2018.

As of 2022 the welcome bonus had increased to a 50% deposit match worth up to $1,000.

There are numerous NFL bets available well before the season kicks off. Still, some notable ones are missing, such as betting on individual player award futures.

There is a live betting page, but it’s not as evolved as BetOnline’s.

Pros

Cons

Sportsbetting.Ag

Sportsbetting.Ag is extremely similar to BetOnline, but it’s clear that this site came well before BetOnline launched. The user interface is definitely dated, though still exceedingly easy to use.

The welcome bonus is the same as BetOnline. It’s great to see there are existing-player promotions, too.

All the bets you’d want for the NFL are available, but the betting interface may dull your excitement a bit.

Pros

Cons

MyBookie

Thanks to the use of a large font sitewide, MyBookie makes navigation easy. Everything you need is clear to see.

Live betting is available, but it’s integrated into the “standard” betting section instead of being its own entity and interface.

MyBookie has a similar welcome bonus to BetOnline and SportsBetting. Like SportsBetting, there are other offers, such as a reload bonus and a 10% cash bonus.

There are multiple categories to choose from when you bet, leaving no stone unturned.

Pros

Cons

How We Rank NFL Sportsbooks

Picking the best football betting sites is a multistep process with several attributes considered.

Below are the key elements we look for when evaluating the best online football betting sites:

Safety/Security

In our NFL online sportsbook rankings, safety and security are of the utmost importance.

The sites on this list must also demonstrate how they protect customer data, such as encryption technology and the various customer service methods.

Bet Types

The more bet types available, the better. Variety keeps things fresh, and helps you find new ways to win when your normal bet doesn’t look promising.

Even in the offseason, your online betting site should be busy. We look for the number of future betting options, NFL Draft betting options, and early Week 1 odds.

Bonuses & Promos

Online betting bonuses and promotions are always an excellent consolation prize. With there being no restrictions on how many online sportsbook accounts you can have, you can collect them like Michael Jordan collected championships.

The welcome bonus is the first offer you’ll have at your disposal. This is typically a deposit bonus. From there, the more existing player promotions available, the more potential value there is.

Banking Options

The key banking categories are:

Ultimately, the best online NFL sportsbooks have a collection of at least three. Nothing is worse than a player not being able to play at an online sportsbook due to the lack of banking options.

Remember that deposit and withdrawal options are sometimes different at the same casino. Check closely before you deposit.

UI & Mobile Capability

Being able to navigate the site of an online sportsbook to find the banking information, customer service, banking page, live betting, and other essential parts is vital. We guarantee that all the online sportsbooks here can be navigated with minimal effort, including on mobile devices.

Customer Support

Generally speaking, live chat is the most desired method of customer service. Others prefer telephone or email. Hopefully your choice includes all three, and a self-service FAQ library to boot.

Look for both quantity and quality in service — see what other players are saying online.

Best NFL Betting Apps

We understand that not everyone is home whenever you want to wager on the NFL. When your desktop isn’t available, your mobile device is — whether it’s a mobile phone or tablet.

On an NFL gambling app, you can wager from virtually anywhere.

Most of our top-ranked sportsbooks don’t offer a true “app.” You can’t download any of our best NFL apps from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Instead, these are “no download” mobile sportsbooks, where the site is already optimized for play when you access it with your phone. No space-eating app download necessary!

That said, there’s a way to make a “pseudo mobile app” on your iOS devices. Still, the icon you’d put on your device is just a link back to the mobile web version.

Below are the top-five NFL betting apps:

1. BetOnline
2. BetUS
3. Bovada
4. MyBookie
5. SportsBetting

These are similar to our rankings of the best overall sports betting apps in 2022, which you can see in full here.

How we rank them:

User Interface

Like with desktop, the user interface is, of course, a big deal here. With a smaller screen than a desktop, we look for mobile apps that don’t lose that same top-tier navigability the desktop version had.

Speed and Reliability

Relying on Wi-Fi and data can be a nuisance. All things being equal, we look for sites that don’t take an excessive amount of time to load from one page to the next, regardless of how you connect to the web.

Features

Going from desktop to mobile can conjure some black magic that forces the developer to find a workaround. With that, we look to see if anything is removed from the mobile app version of the sportsbook.

This more so happens with online casinos, which sometimes reduce their game selection. However, it’s still something we look for with sportsbooks to ensure all the same betting opportunities are there.

Mobile vs. Desktop

The simplest way to think of this is the words “carbon copy” — does the mobile app have a “carbon copy” feel to the desktop.

Simply put, the consistency from one platform to the other makes it so learning curves are minimized.

We can assure you that all of the ranked NFL sportsbook apps here have nothing more than a collapsible drop-down menu to help with the scaling differences.

How to Get Started Betting at NFL Sportsbooks

New to online betting? Here’s a step-by-step guide to claiming your first real-money prize.

1. See What Sports Betting is Legal and Available in Your State

With PASPA being overturned in 2018, more and more states have brought some form of sports betting or horse racing betting to the state.

Below are a handful of states and the varying degrees of what is and isn’t legal.

See All State Laws

2. Choose a Sportsbook

Once you’ve determined where your state stands on sports betting, choose which online sportsbook you want to play at.

You can start by using our top-five list above as a guide. Remember, safety first!

3. Choose Banking Method

When you choose your online sportsbook and create an account, you’ll need to fund it so you can wager.

When you’re choosing an online sportsbook, check to see what banking methods are available. This could be a credit card, Bitcoin, Neteller, or something else.

4. Learn the Ropes

With your account geared up, funded, and ready to go, you’re now technically able to start betting. However, depending on your skill, you may want to learn more about live betting strategy or how to start betting with odds, moneylines, spread, and over/under.

In general, the moneyline is the easiest to learn. This is a bet where you simply pick which team will win the game outright.

Stick to one bet type until you get comfortable with how to bet on football online, then move on to the next.

Eventually, you’ll get advanced enough to deal with parlays, teasers, and round-robin wagers.

5. Make Your First Wager

Now that you’ve understood how the different bet types work, you’re ready to make your first bet.

For example: You head to BetOnline and decide to wager on the Week 1 spread between the Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets.

You’ve chosen the Ravens -5.5, and the odds are -115.

1. The bet slip will populate with your choice.
2. You put in the amount you want to wager.
3. You wager $50.
4. The slip calculates your potential winnings as $43.48.
5. You confirm the wager.

NFL Betting Strategies

There are many ways to enjoy betting on NFL moors betting online.

These bet types can also apply to college football, so let this be somewhat of a general football betting guide, too. (But remember that overtime rules differ.)

Sticking to these tried-and-true NFL betting strategies puts more money in your pocket.

Odds

When considering general NFL betting odds, we cannot recommend line shopping enough. With this strategy, you’ll need accounts at multiple online sportsbooks.

You can then take a bet you want to make and compare it across sites to see which offers the best value.

You can get NFL betting odds explained further in our general odds guide

Moneyline

The moneyline is one of the most straightforward bets in all sports betting, and the NFL is no exception to the rule — which team will win?

When looking at moneyline bets, consider the home underdogs. Of course, if the line is something like +1,000, they’re a heavy underdog, and they probably stink.

However, if you can find a line of something like +110, the game should be close … and there’s something to be said about home-field advantage.

Spread

Like with the moneyline, finding a narrow home underdog is a great go-to strategy for spread betting.

However, we’ll give you another tip — spreads of less than 3.

In the NFL, spreads under 3 mean you’re essentially picking which team will win outright. Final game scores don’t often have a margin of less than 3.

So, if you think the favorite will win and the spread is less than 3, take the spread instead of the moneyline, as there’s more value on the betting line.

Since 2003, the chances of winning by less than 3 points have been less than 5%, per Sports Insights.

Over/Under

In today’s NFL, offenses are more explosive than ever. With that, we sometimes disregard the defense and only look at how each offense — and quarterback — will perform.

However, when evaluating the over/under, there could be key defensive battles, such as a pass rusher vs. left or right tackle, or a receiver vs. a cornerback.

Some key stats to look at when evaluating defense in the NFL include:

Check out our guide for more information on how to bet over/under in the NFL.

Parlay

Parlays are an excellent bet type to leverage with NFL betting to win even more money. Suppose you’re confident about two or more particular outcomes. In that case, you can put them on the same ticket and win even more money instead of betting separately.

With a parlay, all items on the ticket must win. The added risk propels the odds and winnings beyond what you can get individually.

Below are two strategies for standard and same-game parlays.

Props

For player props, use the spread, moneylines, and totals as a reference point.

This should be your thought process:

Live betting

NFL moors betting online evolve quickly, so live betting can be hectic to manage. The odds are shifting so rapidly that you’ll need to be ready to submit that wager.

On top of focusing on a single game and actually watching said game, this is an excellent opportunity to hedge a pre-game wager.

Futures

While most futures bets have “+” lines, this is the time to project and get a bit bold. For a futures bet, look at the list of options, go through all the teams or players you think could win that futures wager, and evaluate the value.

Here, Burrow could be an exciting pick at +1100. The Bengals made it to the Super Bowl last year, and the team has improved at their weakest link from last year — the offensive line.

These bets aren’t meant to be shots in the dark, but with +1100 value on a proven team and player, that could be a better strategy than whoever the favorite is.

Still, with futures, be ready to hedge bets as the season goes on or spread some wealth to other places on the futures board to maximize your chance of winning money.

FAQ