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A Guide to NFL Predictions
With sports betting legal in more states by the month, many people are looking for ways to cash in on their NFL predictions
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The National Football League, more commonly known as the NFL, is a professional American football league comprising 32 teams. Since its creation in 1920, the NFL has attracted nationwide attention, as well as global attention in recent years with the exciting expansion to other countries with the London Games in the UK, and the Munich Game in Germany. Even non-sports fans are familiar with the spectacular half-time Super Bowl shows and famous advertisements.
Today, the NFL is not only a major professional sports league but also the highest American football professional league globally. Heated debates swirl each year as training camp/preseason ends and the new NFL season kicks off, with coaches, players, pundits, and bettors all weighing in with their opinions. Let’s face it, there’s always so much to talk about! With the start of every new season, NFL predictions are always a major topic of conversation among sports fans, but exactly how do these predictions work?
NFL predictions, like other forms of predictions, are based on points spread, rotation number, and moneylines, which are important terms in betting odds. A point spread is the most popular bet that lists the teams favored to win with a number and a minus sign and the team least likely to win with the same number as the favored team and a plus sign. If in certain predictions neither of the two teams are favored to win, then those will have a “pick” or “even” listing.
The moneyline means that the team that wins pays out. This begs the question of how bet-takers level the playing field since there points aren’t taken or given away. The answer is that the person making the bet has to wager more on the favored team to win less money and as such, betting less to win a higher amount on the less favored team. In this case, the favored team will then be posted with a number and minus sign that represents cash to be wagered to win. Whereas the less-favored team, the underdog, will be listed with a number and a plus sign in front of it, which shows how much the person making the bet wins when they bet a certain amount.
The rotation number is when you see NFL odds, there is the game’s date and time on the left and two numbers with the teams’ names next to each of the two numbers on the right. Rotation numbers are standard and act as a point of reference to a game and its teams without actually mentioning the names of the teams involved.
Rotation numbers let books list games in numerical order, making the organization of games posted daily and weekly easier. With betting, bookmakers can use odds to even out, which is done by making gamblers wager on the two different sides, which ultimately levels the field. In NFL predictions, there is more or less overall parity, although some teams will still be superior to others, such as the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals.
Predictions of NFL outcomes are a vast enterprise with millions of people betting on predictions and losing or winning money yearly. One effective model on which to base your NFL predictions was created by Nate Silver, the founder of politics, economics, and sports website FiveThirtyEight. Through the use of numbers and statistical analysis, the famous model is able to create a reliable outcome prediction and model. Their NFL model has been widely used based on its past accuracy. This effective NFL prediction model created in 2014 continuously improves its prediction accuracy. However, there are always ways to make NFL predictions better.
The Elo model is another very popular sports prediction algorithm. The model judges players and football teams entirely based on head-to-head results. This can foresee game probabilities and possible wins for each team by assigning a power rating which is used to generate said probabilities based on different ratings. Some adjustments have to be taken into account for approximate predictions. Adjustments include factors such as playoff adjustment, rest/injuries adjustment, home-field adjustment, travel adjustment, and margin-of-victory multiplier.
NFL predictions can never be an exact science, as American football is an ever-evolving sector. However, accuracy can be helped with some key details. By constantly taking into account play styles, new patterns, and simulations, predictions can be improved and hopefully work better in the long term. The most important thing to keep in mind with NFL predictions is to keep them aligned with how American football evolves and changes.
