Thanksgiving is a huge holiday in the U.S. with family and friends getting together for a day of thanks. For sports betting and football fans, it is a day for college football as they enjoy 23 college football games. To add more excitement to the games, football fans like to place a few wagers on their favorite team. If not knowing how to bet on football makes you feel left out, have no fear. This is because our tutorial on How to Bet on College Football will put you right in the action!
Even if sports betting is not legal in Georgia, it does not mean you cannot place a bet on it. Georgians can just take a short ride to Tennessee or North Carolina to place their bets. Otherwise, you will have to wait until the Georgia legislature makes it legal. With luck, it will happen soon as another sports betting bill is set to be put to the House in 2022
In the meanwhile, don’t be left out of the fun and excitement and learn the basics of football betting.
How to Bet on College Football – The Fast and Easy Way
When it comes to betting on any sports, there are 3 main types of wagers available to players. They are money line betting, spread betting and totals betting and are known as single-game bets or straight bets. These types of bets apply to college football betting and we will go over them in this sports betting tutorial.
Other popular bets include parlays and teaser but we will not go over them today to simplify this tutorial.
Betting on the College Football Point spread
Betting on the point spread is probably the most popular way to bet on college football. You often hear this term on the sports betting news or amongst gamblers where they talk about football betting.
When it comes to NCAA football, games rarely have a perfect even matchup. There is usually a team that is better and will dominate the game. For a sportsbook, this makes it difficult to make money if everyone bets on the superior team. Therefore, they create a point spread a team must win or lose by in order to win the bet.
This allows for more even sports betting odds to equalize the betting on both sides of the bet. For a gambler, the advantage of betting on the spread is that it makes the risk to win ratio more even.
Here is an example of a Typical College Football Betting Line
- Georgia -7 -110
- Alabama +7 -110
In this scenario, Georgia is the favorite because it has a ”–“ sign in front of the 7. If you bet on Georgia, they must win by over 7 points in order to win the bet.
On the other hand, Alabama is the underdog because it has a “+” sign in front of the number. Therefore, if you bet on Alabama, as long as they do not lose by over 7 points you win!
The number that follows afterwards is -110 which is the vig or commission the sportsbook charges to take you bet. The -110 means they will charge 10% to take your bet. If the number had been -105, it means the sportsbook would charge 5% to take the bet.
A sportsbook commission is usually around 10% but you can sometimes find higher or lower commission on certain games.
Betting on the College Football Money Line
This is the simplest type of bet available because you wager on who you think will win the game. If you win your wager, the amount you win will depend on the sports betting odds. Odds are made by bookmaker to even out the betting so gamblers will not all bet on the same team.
Here is an example of a Typical College Football Betting Line
- Georgia -220
- Alabama +180
In this scenario, Georgia is the favorite because it has a ”–“ sign in front of the 220. On the other hand, Alabama is the underdog because it has a “+” sign in front of the number. If you bet $25 on Georgia and they won, you would win $11.36 plus your $25 stake money. On the other hand, if you had put $25 on on Alabama and they won, you would get $70 back. That is you would win $45 plus you would get your $25 back.
Of course, these numbers do not include the commission!
Betting on College Football Totals – Over/Under
Betting on the College Football Total or the Over/Under is another easy way to bet on football. In this type of bet, you wager on whether the finals score of the game will be over or under a certain number.
Here is an example of an Over/Under line:
Over 40.5 -110
Under 40.5 -110
In this example, you are wagering that the final score will be over or under 40.5. The -110 is once again the commission the sportsbook will charge. Therefore, if you bet $100 on the over/Under and win, you would win $90 and get your $100 back.
