Futures bets are those that will be settled at some point in the future, as their name indicates. These kinds of football wagers can be placed as far in advance as a year or more and as close to an event as two weeks before.
As a general rule, there are regular season win totals posted at some bookmakers’ sites months before the NFL season even begins, even though these wagers will not be settled for almost a year. Future markets are offered for conference championships; divisions; and the Super Bowl well in advance, and finding markets for the latter is absolutely no problem for punters, as these are published up to almost a year before the games will begin.
Higher Juice than Normal for Football Futures
Futures markets for football games will frequently have higher than average juice, or commission, taken by the bookmaker, and this is as a result of bettors not always knowing how to spot it.
For example, punters who are interested in the odds on which football team will win the Super Bowl will see that the teams are all listed with odds of a minimum of +500, or 5/1. The reason there is juice, or vigorish, even though no teams have odds on favourites, is that there are a total of 32 teams taking part, and, if bettors place wagers on each one of these, a significant amount of money will be forfeited, since only one team can win.
Theoretically, if all football teams are equally matched, the fairest odds would be +3200 for each of them, and this would assume no juice, with each team having an equal stab at the win. Some teams are far stronger than others, however, and the odds in place for each will reflect this. Some teams will have odds of +500 or +600, while others will skyrocket these up to as much as +1000000, or 100/1. Punters who convert all of the teams’ odds into percentages and add them together would arrive at number below 100, with this amount reflecting the house take.
Punters Should Pay Attention to Trends
Football punters should take the same attitude to their bets as stock market investors do, and pay close attention to trends. This translates into bettors spotting something that works, and sticking to it until it stops doing so. Examples of this could be a backup quarterback coming in and performing well, or a team which consistently covers the spread when they play during prime time.
Savvy bettors will spot phenomenon like those mentioned above over and over again, not just in terms of football, but with other sports and life in general, and will do better in all areas of Grand Finals betting, if they start paying attention to them.
Punters will be able to do a vast amount of research on their own, and can look to online forums and comparison sites for the extra info they may feel they need. A huge part of successful betting lies in properly preparing, and many punters regularly boosting their bankrolls can attest to this fact.