NFL Preseason Bets: Your Comprehensive Guide

As the new season starts to creep closer, the NFL betting really starts to heat up. With no formal games in play yet, there’s still a lot going on which could influence the up and coming NFL betting trends.

With fans following their favourite players closely and training camps underway, here’s a run-through of the best bets NFL preseason has to offer.

Apart from the training camps, NFL teams play a surprising amount during the preseason, and certainly enough to start piling in the NFL betting. 

It all kicks off with the Hall of Fame Game with one AFC and one NFC competing for the title. This game is huge for NFL betting and attracts a lot of interest from fans, with many sportsbooks reporting more in wagers for the event than the rest of the day's sports combined! And when you consider there is golf, tennis, baseball and summer league basketball, that adds up to a very significant sum. 

However, the Hall of Fame Game is just the start of the action as over the next four weeks, there are games every week between Thursday and Saturday. All of the teams play four games but will not play a team from the same division as them. As these games take place in the height of summer, all of them are played at night when it's cooler. 

These matches allow the coaches and management of the teams to experiment with strategy and evaluate players. Although training camp is useful, there’s nothing quite like a live game to get an accurate feel of a player’s true potential.

If you're familiar with NFL betting, you might feel ready to plunge right into the preseason without any preamble. However, as all the NFL betting blogs will tell you, preseason is played completely differently. 

For starters, the goal of each game isn't to win. Of course, the coach will be pleased to see his team secure a victory on the field; the aim is to gain useful information and try out new things. If you place a bet based on who you think has the better line-up, you could be in for a shock. 

There's no denying that there's a lot of volatility in the NFL preseason betting, but if you follow a few simple rules, you could still have some fun:

While the team's coach is always essential, it's especially significant during the preseason. Some coaches want to win and push their teams, while others really don't care about the result because they're so focused on the evaluation. Make sure you know the motivation of the team coach before considering a bet.

Getting inside information is like fighting for scraps on the table during the season. There's not the same caution in the preseason because there's nothing really at stake. You can get lots of news and hints that could help you to win your bets if you do your homework.

Although a second-string defence may be being played, the offence will also be fielding backup players, so it should even out, right? Not necessarily. The offensive players take longer to hit their stride and get match-sharp, so there's an advantage to the defence in the preseason games - which typically means lower scores.

In normal betting, it’s often a good move to bet against the public, a strategy known as “fading”. However, in preseason you may find it beneficial to take the opposite approach and follow the public when placing your bets.

This is because there's a much larger percentage of professional bettors during the preseason, rather than the usual crowd of less knowledgeable fans. Up to 70% of the betting is made by pro gamblers preseason, and following their bets could be highly profitable.

You'd expect most teams to have one standout pick and a pretty solid backup when it comes to quarterbacks. In the preseason, the quarterbacks further down the pecking order get more field time which could mean third or fourth picks doing more snaps.

If you can find some hidden talent in the lower-ranked quarterbacks, preseason is where you could capitalise on the info.