• In football handicap betting, a “handicap” is applied to each team in a match, to level out the odds on both teams. This gives punters a realistic chance of winning by backing either side, even if one team is widely considered to be stronger than the other.
  • Our database is a valuable resource for college football handicappers to discover betting angles that they wouldn’t necessarily have access to. The box-score data goes back to 1996 and the odds and totals go back as far as 1990.

There are many football betting markets available, with 1X2, correct score, both teams to score and first goal scorer being among some of the most popular and easy to understand. However, there are plenty of other options when betting on football, one of which is handicap betting.

How many times have you thought about betting on a football match, looked at the betting markets online, seen handicap betting and chose to ignore it because you are not sure what it means?

Perhaps you do know what it means but have never taken the plunge? Whatever your current thoughts on handicap betting, you are about to become enlightened with our tips for how to win more at handicap betting.

Here we explain all you need to know about Handicapping in football betting, we give examples so you can easily place bets using the handicap market on bookm.

In this article you will find out a lot about the handicap betting market including:

  • What is handicap betting?
  • How does handicap betting work?
  • What leagues should you bet on?
  • What are the best betting sites?
  • How can you win more using handicap betting?

Find out the answers to these questions and much more by continuing below.

1. Handicap Betting Explained

For many beginner football gamblers, handicap betting is something new but thankfully, it is easy enough to understand.

Handicap betting is popular when a strong football team is playing against a weaker team. To balance the playing field and make the match more interesting for gamblers, the bookmaker will open a handicap betting market and give the favourite a disadvantage at the beginning of the match and the outsider an advantage.

Example

Betting

Let’s take a look at the 2018/19 Champions League round of 16 second leg game between Manchester City and Schalke as an example.

Manchester City won the first leg in Germany and are the bookies favourites to win the Champions League. They won the first leg 3-2 and are priced at just 1/6 (1.17)to win the second leg, making them the overwhelming favourites.

You believe the bookmakers are right and Manchester City will win the game and will do with ease. However, there is little point in betting on odds of 1/6 (1.17) and this is where handicap betting comes into play.

The handicap market gives Manchester City (-2) at odds of 11/10 (2.10). At 1/6 (1.17), at €10 bet would return €11.66 but using the handicap odds of 11/10 (2.10), the potential returns are a more satisfying €21.

For the bet to be a winner, Manchester City must win the game by 3 clear goals. The (-2) listed on the odds refers to goals and therefore, Manchester City are starting the game 2-0 down for the purpose of the bet.

If Manchester win the game 1-0, they lose 1-2 for the purposes of the bet and you lose your stake. If the match ends 2-0 to Manchester city, the final score is 2-2 for the purposes of the bet and you lose. If Manchester City win 3-0, the outcome in terms of the bet is 3-2 in favour of Manchester City and you win the bet.

Now you know how handicap betting works, let’s take a look at some tips for how to win more at handicap betting.

  • Balances the playing field
  • Gives weaker team an advantage
  • Goals are the key
  • Makes potentially mundane matches interesting

2. Use the Best Betting Sites

Using the best betting sites is important, not only for handicap betting but for all forms of betting. You want to place your handicap bets at online bookmakers who have the correct licensing, security certificates, good support and selection of payment methods.

Nfl Football Betting Lines

With that in place, you must look at the selection of handicap betting markets. You do not want to be betting at a website which has limited handicap betting markets. You want to click on a football match knowing there will be handicap betting odds available, not hoping there will be handicap betting odds available.

You will waste a great deal of time if you keep having to search different bookmakers because the one you have chosen does not offer handicap betting odds.

  • Check licenses and certificates
  • Look for handicap odds
  • Use only if regular handicap odds available

3. Find the Best Odds

Handicap betting may be a new form of football betting for some people but the same principles apply when it comes to finding the best odds. You must bet on handicap markets using the best odds available.

You will only increase your potential winnings by betting using the best odds and, in most cases, it can take seconds to compare odds between various bookmakers. You could be losing out on a great deal of money over the course of a year if you accept the first odds you find when handicap betting.

Take the short amount of time required to find the highest odds possible for your handicap bet and reap the full rewards when you place a successful bet.

  • Look for the best odds
  • Use comparison tool
  • Do not be lazy and look around

4. Team Form

Before placing a handicap bet you must check the form of both teams involved. This means general form, the form for that particular competition and home/away form.

For example, you may find a team such as Porto enjoy a fantastic record in the Portuguese league and start as favourites in most games. You would use handicap betting when placing a bet on Porto to defeat a lower team in the Portuguese league.

However, when they play in the Champions League, their record is not as good and therefore you would tend to avoid using handicap betting in this competition.

When analysing form for handicap betting, you want to look for teams who are dominant and you can then place a bet feeling confident they can overturn the handicap placed upon them.

Manchester City or Liverpool playing at home in the Premier League against teams from the bottom half of the table is a good example.

Handicap Football Betting Tips

  • Home and Away form important
  • Look at that particular tournament
  • Find dominant teams

5. Bet on Heavy Favourites

This brings us nicely on to our next handicap betting tip, which is to bet on heavy favourites. It can be tempting to go for an outsider and hope they make life tough for the favourite but you are always advised to back the heavy favourite when handicap betting.

While winning a bet can never be guaranteed and you should never bet more than you can afford, backing the heavy favourite when handicap betting will always give you a better chance of success.

Think about it in terms of making shorter odds more favourable and you begin to see why. Take our example of Manchester City from above. If they are playing at home in the Premier League against Cardiff City and have won each of their last three home league games by 3 goals or better, the odds for a Manchester City win are going to be very low.

However, for every goal head start you give Cardiff City, the better the odds are going to become. In this instance, you could bet on Manchester City (-2) and still stand a good chance of winning the bet. Handicap betting odds are always better when used to back the favourite and if you stick to this principle it will help increase the potential for you to win.

  • Always back the favourite
  • Dominant teams are best
  • Use teams who are strong at home

6. Team News

Team news plays a huge roll in betting and one of our top tips for how to win more at handicap betting is to always check the team news before placing a bet.

If Liverpool are playing Burnley at home in the Premier League, you would expect Liverpool to come out on top and by a couple of goals. However, you take a look at the team news one hour prior to kick-off and Liverpool are playing without Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.

With these key players missing, Liverpool become much weaker in both defence and attack. Therefore, their chances of winning the match by a significant margin become reduced and you would think twice about placing a handicap bet on Liverpool to win.

Imagine you placed a Bet on Liverpool (-2) only to later discover their team is missing these three players? There is no excuse for it so do not allow it to happen to you.

  • Always check team news
  • Look for key players
  • Never bet if important players are missing

7. Head-to-Head Record

The head-to-head record between teams can provide a good insight into what might happen in a match. You should never expect the same type of result to repeat itself every season between two teams but you can use it to back up you handicap betting plans.

If a team has been enjoying 2 or 3 goal wins over a team at home in their past five meetings, you will feel confident placing a handicap bet on them next time the fixture is played.

However, always try and find out the relevance of the fixtures you are looking at. Stoke City vs Liverpool is a great example and the home team defeated Liverpool 6-1 at the end of the 2014/15 campaign only for Liverpool to return the following season and win 1-0.

The timing and significance of a previous fixture should always be considered before placing a bet.

  • Check head-to-head record
  • Use it to back-up your plan
  • Check significance of the previous fixture

8. In-form Players

If you are planning on placing a handicap bet, you want to ensure the team you are backing has players who are scoring goals. You do not want to back a team to overcome a two goal handicap if their strikers have been struggling to score goals.

They could even be playing what is considered weak opposition but if a team does not have someone who can put the ball in the back of the net, it could turn into a struggle. Always try and back teams with players in goal scoring form when handicap betting.

  • Back teams with top goal scorers
  • Check form of strikers
  • Find teams with players in goal scoring form

9. Statistical Margin

It is not always enough to simply look at the past five results and the team news when placing a handicap bet. You must also look at individual results, be it for the whole of the previous season or for the matches already played in the current campaign.

Look at the number of times each team in the league has won games by a 2 goal margin or better. For example, you may find a team in 5th place has won the same number of games by a 2 goal margin or better as the team in 15th place.

Perhaps the 15th place team has defeated most of the teams below them comfortably so when they come up against someone below them in the table next, you can look at handicap betting as an option.

Taking the 2014/15 Premier League season as an example, Tottenham Hotspur finished in 5th place and won five games by a 2 goal margin or better while Hull City finished in 18th place and had the same record. So, it can happen and it pays to do some research to find out this key information before placing a handicap bet.

You can keep a record of which teams are winning by high margins throughout the season and this will make it easier to find the information as and when you need it.

  • Research margin of victory
  • Which teams are winning by 2 goals or more?
  • Keep your own record for easy reference

10. Low Scoring Teams

There is one simple rule you need to follow when handicap betting and that’s to stay away from low scoring teams.

When you think about it, this makes sense because when handicap betting on the favourite to win, you are backing them to overturn a deficit. If that team has managed to score just 1 goal in each of their last five games, how are they going to overturn a -1 goal handicap?

The team may be in form in terms of their results but if they have been winning most of their matches 1-0, you would consider it unlikely they are going to all of a sudden produce a performance which sees them win 3-0.

It could be down to the tactics of the manager or the playing personnel but you should always avoid low scoring teams.

  • Avoid low scoring teams
  • Keep away from teams winning 1-0
  • Consider a team’s tactics before betting

11. Unrealistic Handicaps

If you have tasted some success handicap betting it can become tempting to push your luck a little and increase the handicap by one more goal to improve the odds further. Do not be tempted to do this as you will only be disappointed you did not stick you your original plan if the bet loses.

You could always combine the bet with another one if you would like to increase the odds and you should certainly stay away from big handicaps, such as (-4). As tempting as the odds might be, the bookmaker will be laughing if you decide to place such a bet as it is not often you find many games in the top leagues which end with a 5 goal margin of victory.

  • Keep control
  • Do not increase the handicap for better odds
  • Stay away from unrealistic handicaps

Handicap betting is a great way to place a bet on a heavy favourite and improve your odds. If you follow the handicap betting tips above you will have a better chance of placing a winning handicap bet but remember there is always a risk and you should never bet more than you can afford.

Doc's Sports Service is the most trusted and well-respected sports information company in the United States, and below you will find 12 NFL handicapping tips that are as unique as our diverse group.

Doc's Sports has a veteran team of NFL handicappers doing some of the most in-depth NFL handicapping in the country, and providing winning NFL picks on a weekly basis, and our service is second-to-none in terms of both results and customer relations. In our fifth decade of existence, Doc's Sports is the gold standard in the sports handicapping industry.

We offer our clients top NFL predictions at one fair price. Our NFL handicappers release a full slate of NFL picks, which come with Doc's expert college football picks, at 5 p.m. CST each Thursday. Every one of our NFL handicappers has a different style, but all have enjoyed vast success in professional football.

We offer many packages to accommodate anyone's needs - from one-day big play picks to one-week packages to our comprehensive full-season package.

All of our NFL Handicapping picks come with a rotation number, unit ratings ( Click Here to read more about our unique Unit System for the best money management and be sure to check out Allen Eastman's famous 'NFL 411' NFL football betting system )

Here are 12 NFL handicapping tips from our team of experts:

DOC'S SPORTS - NFL is one of the hardest sports to handicap because of the amount of information available on each of the 32 teams. One of the best things to remember when handicapping NFL games is that all players are professionals and there just is not much carryover from week to week. Oftentimes a team will get blown out the prior week, and a novice gambler will go against them the next week expecting a similar performance. That is usually a bad bet as professional players' pride sets in and the team plays much better the following week. Often you get an over-adjusted line, and I always like to play a team coming off an embarrassing performance the week prior.

ROBERT FERRINGO - I absolutely love betting the NFL. A lot of people think it is one of the hardest sports to crack and they try to make it a lot more complicated than it needs to be. My main tip to anyone that is just starting out betting football is don't worry about the spread - just pick a winner. Too often people talk themselves out of a good bet because they don't like the spread. Over a 10-year period from 2004-2014 the NFL favorites went 1283-1210-67 against the spread. That's almost exactly 50 percent (49.5 to be exact). However, the final score of NFL games differed from the spread by more than 10 points a game, and the outright winner of the game covered the spread 84.1 percent of the time. That means that the number only comes into play once every six or seven games (or about twice a week). Don't bet an underdog that you think can 'keep it close,' and don't get scared off a favorite because the line is 8.5 and you wanted 7.0. If you pick the outright winner there's a great chance your bet will cover. Get $60 in free member picks - no obligation - click here

ALLEN EASTMAN - I have been betting NFL football for over 30 years, and I have turned a profit in 17 of my last 21 NFL seasons. For me the most important tip I can give someone trying to beat the NFL is that you need to become a good oddsmaker. Each week I use all of the statistics and information that I have available to set my own spreads and totals for all of the games. Then I see the numbers that the oddsmakers put out and I compare them to my line. The games with the biggest difference are where I find the most value. Of course, it helps to have something as great as the NFL 411 System to rely on (60.7 percent winners the last seven years)! But over time I've found that my numbers are usually stronger than the oddsmakers, so I trust my own numbers. You should do the same.

RAPHAEL ESPARZA - Look for the second batch of line movements. Most oddsmakers put out NFL numbers around the time of the late Sunday NBC game. Right away the numbers will move, and after the late Sunday NFL game ends usually bettors are ready to bet the next week of football games. Sometime between Wednesday and Thursday the NFL numbers will generally move again, and that is when I really start looking into the games I have circled. Sometimes the line movement helps and sometimes the line movement kills me, but at least I can recognize how the number will move throughout the weekend. Also, waiting for that second line movement will tell you things such as how the weather will be that Sunday, and the injury list will be clarified a bit better than earlier in the week. Get $60 in free member picks - no obligation - click here

STRIKE POINT SPORTS - Some teams in the NFL just do not play well as a favorite. It could be that they are overrated in the eyes of the public or it could be poor coaching or inconsistent quarterback play. But there are some teams that you want to stay far away from when they are dressed up in the role of the big favorite. A perfect example is the Dallas Cowboys with Tony Romo at quarterback and Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett as coach. Over the last five years the Cowboys are just 8-24 ATS as a home favorite and 7-9 as a road favorite. That's a horrendous 15-33 mark when laying points! Some other teams like the Giants, Dolphins and Ravens also perform much better when they are taking points rather than laying out. Don't try too hard to buck the odds with these teams. Either stay away completely or hold your nose and take the points.

INDIAN COWBOY - We want to focus and share one main theory that we use in handicapping the NFL. It is called the 'active underdog over theory'. The active underdog theory is essentially taking an underdog that you believe will be an active underdog (either due to revenge against a team from an earlier season loss, coming off a double-digit loss, losing outright to a team they were heavily favored against, etc.) and taking the 'over' with this team. So you expect a team that is looking to exceed expectations over the line currently constructed for them. So anytime that you think a team that is an underdog is going to exceed expectations against a team then take the 'over'. This is because if the underdog is highly motivated as we discussed for revenge, coming off a double-digit loss, or losing outright to a team they were favored straight up against, then certainly they will be motivated to exceed the amount of points they are expected to score in their next game. Get $60 in free member picks - no obligation - click here

JASON SHARPE - When it comes to winning at betting on the NFL, the most important thing you want to do is to try and think outside the box. The NFL betting market is considered by most to be the toughest for a sports bettors to beat as no other sport is more picked apart and looked at closer by the fans/media than the NFL. If you find yourself having the same opinion of an NFL team as everyone else then you most likely shouldn't be betting for or against that team. They say 95 percent of the NFL bettors will lose money betting it during the regular season. Thinking like everyone else is setting you up for failure when it comes to the NFL. Find good reasons to try and go against the public perception in the NFL as the betting public heavily influences the lines. The best strategy is to bet against the public in the NFL. So if you see a spread that is -4 at the beginning of the week then all week long all you hear is everyone saying how this team will win easily and if the -4 team and is now up to -7 on game day, it's a lot smarter to bet against this team as the value will come from taking the other side at +7.

MIKE DAVIS - The first thing you must remember in the NFL is this: last week doesn't matter. These athletes are so closely matched that one week's game has no bearing on the outcome of next week's game. Forget what you witnessed last week and handicap the games accordingly. Home-field advantage matters in the NFL, and teams traveling for Thursday night games have not fared well. I pay attention to the injury list, especially along the lines of scrimmage. One offensive linemen being out can affect the entire offensive line. Do not bet on mediocre quarterbacks on the road.

ALAN HARRIS - Bet against the public. This is paramount in the NFL more than any other sport. Working in various Las Vegas sports books over the past seven years has shown me this first hand. Information is now readily available on the web that wasn't around even five years ago, and it's fairly easy to find out what the public is on in various offshore sportsbooks. This info isn't as readily available for the Vegas books, so still having a few connections there certainly doesn't hurt things on our end. It's been noted for those that are behind the counter that if you just bet against the top five teams that the public has put into parlays by closing time on Saturday night you'd come out ahead at the end of the season. Now, like any system, this isn't foolproof. But being on the side the house needs, especially in the NFL, is never a bad thing. Get $60 in free member picks - no obligation - click here

VERNON CROY - The NFL is one of the toughest sports in the world to be successful betting at, and that is because the lines are usually very sharp. The oddsmakers spend more time than any other sport adjusting the lines because of the huge draw the NFL brings to the books. The books can't afford to be putting out weak lines, especially on featured games. The best tip I can give you when betting the NFL is to always - and I repeat always - buy the hook or half point on key numbers: 3.5, 7.5, 10.5, 14.5. Buy those points and this would give you 3, 7, 10, 14, and more times than not it will be the difference between losing or at least pushing because the lines are very tight. Also, almost always bet the public favorites as soon as the lines come out and non-public dogs closer to game time, so you get the best lines possible. The lines will change a lot with the action coming in during the week, so take advantage of this when you can.

Tony George - Remember one thing about the NFL: the line is everything. You are not betting teams or games, you are betting into a number. There are key numbers, or what we call fall numbers in the NFL. Those are numbers games are likely to land on in the final score. Numbers like 3, 6, 7 and 10 are numbers I do not want to be on. The value of a half a point over or under these key numbers depending on whom you are handicapping will be crucial. A three-point home underdog is not as nearly as attractive as a 3.5-point home dog. The value of a half a point in the NFL cannot be stressed enough, especially around these crucial numbers.

Scott Spreitzer - The best piece of advice I got from a Vegas sports bettor when I began my sports betting journey happened about 25 years ago, and I use it to this very day. Learn to make your own lines a week in advance. Let's say Pittsburgh is hosting the Ravens on October 15 after playing the Bengals on October 8. I make my line for the October 15 game before the game on October 8. I set my numbers on a Wednesday, eight days before the next NFL week is played. This will keep you from overreacting when teams play far from their norm. Learning to think like a bookmaker is the key to beating the books. This particular handicapping tool has been instrumental in my NFL success, including placing in the Top 20 in the Westgate NFL Super Contest. Remember, we bet on and against numbers, not teams.

Here is a list of handicapping tips and picks from the other sports we offer:

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