The average gambler can sometimes look at NFL betting lines and get a little confused as to what those lines mean. How do you win? How do you lose? The price per head bookie websites will give you several ways to bet on football games. The easiest ones to understand are usually the ones that most people follow. Let’s take a quick look at football betting lines and how they work.

Let’s say you had a line that looked like this:

Buffalo Bills -3

New England Patriots +3

This means that the Bills are spotting the Patriots three points right out of the gate. If you bet on the Bills, then the Bills need to win by four or more points for your bet to be good. If you bet on the Patriots, then the Patriots just need to win outright or lose by two points or less. If the Bills win by exactly three points, then the bet is a push and you get your money back.

Another kind of NFL bet is when you bet on the NFL scores themselves. This is called an over/under bet. Let’s say that the over/under on the previous example was 38 points. You can bet that the combined score between the two teams will either be under or over 38 points. If the game winds up with the two teams scoring a combined 38 points, then it is a push and your money is refunded. Remember that the over/under is always the combined score of both teams. Some websites will allow you to bet the over/under on an individual team, but you need to read the website closely to make sure that you understand what you are betting on.