American Football Betting Strategy: Player Performance Markets

Admir Aljic

September 18th, 2013

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When it comes to American Football betting, it's easy to get bogged down in the strategy and overcomplicate your betting system. Where things are a little simpler (if not necessarily easier), however, are in the player performance markets.

Scorer Markets

The simplest of these markets is the 'scorers' market. The shortest odds are always on the wide receiver (usually the safest bet to score a touchdown), followed by the running backs, then any other player on the team. You'll usually find the longest odds available on the tight ends, as well as the quarterback. This is because he'll generally be the one feeding the passes out to the main scorers.

To give an example of the kind of odds to expect from the scorer markets, let's take a look at the matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals on 17th September 2013. Over at Coral Sports, the shortest first scorer odds were awarded to the wide-receiver of the favourite team, the Bengals. A.J. Green was rated 13/2 to score first or last, and 8/11 to score anytime. His opposite number at the Steelers, Antonio Brown, was rated at 10/1 to score first or last, and 6/4 to score anytime. The wide receivers, meanwhile, ranged from 8/1 - 12/1 to score first/last and 1/1 - 9/4 anytime.

Once you get into the stats, particularly later in the season, it makes more sense to move beyond the scorer market and look at American Football markets that cover the entire game. Of particular interest to stats fans are the 'pass yard' and 'receiving yards' markets''.

Pass Yards

Sticking with the Steelers at the Bengals as our example, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was rated 20/23 to notch up less than 245.5 pass yards. Given that the Steelers struggled in their previous outing at Tennessee, a match in which Big Ben racked up just 191 pass yards, and that his season average for 2012 was 251 yards/game, it seems like a reasonable bet.

Pass Success Rate / Interceptions

In addition to examining past performance when looking at the 'pass yard market', other stats worth examining are 'pass success rate' market and 'interceptions' market, which give you a better idea of the quality of a quarterback's passing: a trait that's as valuable as the strength of his arm.

Receptions

On the receiving end, Bengals wide receiver AJ Green was tipped to get over 90.5 receiving yards at 4/5, having registered an impressive 162 yards in the team's narrow loss to Chicago. The supporting stats of note here are receptions (passes caught) and receptions of 20+ yards; both of which are a good guide to consistency in the 'receiving yards' market.

The main drawback with these markets is the low odds. For the Steelers at the Bengals, none of the odds rose above 20/23. This is because the margins are so tight, and the stats are there for all to see. If you get really confident, and you're not averse to some risk, you can always build an accumulator to boost your odds by heading over to Bet365 Sports.