How to Make Money by Betting on NFL Preseason Games (Maybe)

The stars are on the sidelines, the coaches don't care, and the games don't count. But Vegas is still open for business.
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Everyone has a different reason for hating the NFL preseason, which wraps its final week this Thursday night. Players receive only a weekly per diem until regular season games start, which means they're risking injury to play meaningless snaps at a discount. Coaches often limit veterans and starters to a series or two before sending in rookies and backups and undrafted free agents, who might not even make final roster cuts, to decide the outcome. And since teams typically require season ticket-holders to buy seats for preseason games, too, fans are paying good money for bad football.

Vegas, though? Vegas doesn't care about this. All the major sportsbooks offer odds on preseason games, the same as if teams were playing games that actually counted. And as wild as it may seem to bet on the unholy trinity of Cardale Jones, Tyrod Taylor, and fifth-round rookie Easton Stick, who split the Chargers' quarterbacking duties in a 19-17 loss to the Saints earlier this month, people still do it.

The pool of gamblers is smaller, admittedly, than it is during the regular season. "We'll do more on a Royals-White Sox game than we do on even a better preseason NFL matchup," says Tony DiTommaso, risk management director at CG Technology Sportsbooks, which operates at (among other casinos) the Venetian and the Palazzo in Las Vegas. "It's not even close."

But the pool of gamblers is also better than it will be come Week 1. Most of the volume comes from sharps—savvy, high-dollar wagerers who may bet on sports for a living. They pay more attention to the goings-on in NFL training camps than bachelor-party attendees in town for the weekend, and might have access to more team intel than does the general public. "Their information is probably better than ours," admits Doug Castaneda, Director of Race & Sports at the Wynn Las Vegas.

Vegas books the games accordingly, limiting its exposure by limiting bet amounts. That way, explains Jeff Davis, Director of Trading at Caesars Palace Las Vegas, "if you're off on a number, you can't get really hurt." During the regular season, DiTommaso's sportsbooks generally take bets from casual players of up to $50,000 per game; the sharps can bet up to $10,000. During the preseason, those numbers are only up to $5,000 and $1,000, respectively. "On straight bets, sharps beat us up a little bit," he says. "We lose more than we win."

Even with the uncertainty surrounding personnel and playing time, there are a few strategies bettors can employ to try and make a profit during these four weeks of fourth-string heroism. "The preseason can be easier than the regular season, if you put in the time and the research," says Brian Bitler of (During the 2018 preseason, he went 14-3-1 against the spread.) "Not many people are paying attention."

The first rule of making money, he says, is mastering the quarterback rotations: Who's under center, and for how long? Teams with good-but-unspectacular veteran backups—Matt Schaub in Atlanta, for example, or Ryan Tannehill in Tennessee—are unlikely to take a lot of snaps, since they're known quantities. Rookie quarterbacks, though, tend to get more time and to sling it around out there in an effort to to show coaches what they've got. If you're looking for points, look for the kids.

In September and beyond, NFL coaches guard their game plans as if they were nuclear launch codes. But in August, they tend to be more liberal about what they share with the media, says Davis. Their midweek press conferences can yield valuable information about what positions their staffs are focused on, for example, or which players they're trying to evaluate, or which quarterback(s) they intend to play. Keeping tabs on a beat reporter's Twitter feed for nuggets like these can be the difference between a making an informed choice and taking a dumb loss.

A team's projected regular-season finish also matters. The contenders are going through the motions in these games; their depth charts are settled, and their focus is on playing into January and February without incurring injuries. "The best team in the NFL might be the worst team in the preseason," says Bitler. But the teams everyone thinks are going to suck this fall? Those are the teams to bet on, because they're going to have position battles up and down the roster. Their first- and second-stringers are a little likelier to play a little longer and a little harder.

If a supposed-to-be-bad team nonetheless posts a couple of early losses, all the better; follow that desperation with your wallet. "A coach already feeling the heat isn't going to want to start 0-3," says Bitler. "They want players going all out." Before Week 3, Castaneda told me that that the Raiders, who are preparing to relocate and drowning in bad Antonio-Brown-helmet-related press, were strong candidates to prize wins in August. "We think the Raiders are a live team," he said. (Their opponent, the Packers, opened at the Wynn as 3-point favorites; by kickoff, the line was down to a pick'em, meaning bettors were favoring the Raiders. Sure enough, Oakland won, 22-21.)

The preseason's quirks can affect the types of wagers that make sense to place, too. Betting against the spread gets a little dicier, since coaches will go out of their way to avoid overtime, even if it means taking a loss. A team that scores what would be a last-minute, game-tying touchdown, for example, will opt to go for two instead of kicking an extra point and playing more football, Davis says. In that scenario, what would have been a three- or six-point overtime final score in any other game becomes a one-point win in regulation.

To avoid the heartache, some gamblers just opt to bet the money line and pick the winner, final score be damned, to avoid the risk of an atypical final margin of victory. Castaneda adds that some pros look hard at the over-under—the total number of points scored in the game. "Anything in the low 40s is a pretty big number for preseason football," he says. When the likes of the aforementioned Easton Stick are prominently involved, there might be good value in betting on a low-scoring final.

All that said: This year, the best time to gamble on exhibition football is already over. "You can make a solid profit for the first three weeks," Bitler says. "But usually, nobody of significance is playing in Week 4. Even the solid second-stringers are getting limited time." Teams use Week 4 to make choices about the last few spots at the end of the roster, and keep the good players on the sidelines wearing hoodies, out of harm's way. There are 16 preseason games scheduled for Thursday, and as of Tuesday afternoon, one oddsmaker told me he'd received exactly one sharp bet. Follow the experts' lead. Save your money for next week.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Brian Bitler's name and incorrectly represented his affiliation.