Betting on football has never been more popular, and according to the American Gaming Association (AGA), close to $100 billion is wagered on National Football League and college football games each year with an estimated 98% of football wagers being placed through online offshore betting websites. But is any of this legal?

To learn more, read on to find out the sports betting laws involved as well as the best football sportsbook sites on the web in our legal online US football betting guide.

How to Bet on Football: A Beginner’s Guide. If you’re new to football betting and keen to get involved then you’ve just come to exactly the right place. On this page we will teach you all the basics of betting on football. You can bet on games such as NFL Football, college basketball, NBA basketball, NHL hockey, soccer, golf, and horse racing among others. With one of the highest bet bonuses in the industry, MyBookie. Yes, college football betting is legal in the United States and there are two options. Domestic Sportsbooks - There are many states that have legalized domestic sports betting and wagers on. There are no federal laws that prohibit betting on college football, post-season playoffs, bowl games, or NCAAF Thanksgiving games. When it comes to risking real money on college football games, there are.

Is it Legal to Bet on Football in the United States?

Depending on where you live, you may have more than one option for betting on football. Due to PASPA's repeal, state lawmakers are now allowed to pass their own legislation and determine whether to legalize sports betting in their respective state. Multiple states have already legalized and launched domestic sportsbook gambling initiatives.

Legal international sports betting has been available to Americans for decades, and does not violate any US federal laws. There are only two states that prohibit offshore online betting: Connecticut and the state of Washington. Offshore sportsbooks covering NFL betting lines offer attractive bonuses and a wide range of wagering options.

Best USA Friendly Sportsbook To Bet On Football Games

In House

If you enjoy betting on football, then Bovada Sportsbook is where you should consider playing. Players who are familiar with the big names in online gambling know Bovada is a name they can trust since they are part of the Bodog group of reputable online betting sites. Bovada accepts all USA players and offers easy funding methods.

As far as football is concerned, Bovada offers everything you can imagine in the way of betting on football games from NFL, College and Arena with all the betting options you've become accustomed to such as straight, halves, quarters, 2nd half lines, prop bets, future bets, teasers, parlays etc... And the fact that you are playing with one of the most reputable names in online betting should give you the peace of mind you need so you can actually just enjoy the games and sweat your bet, not getting paid.

• Extremely Reputable - They've never missed a payout

• Only Players from the US, Mexico and Brazil accepted

Yes, but only if you place a wager through a legitimate destination that is subject to strict regulatory oversight or that is owned and operated by a parent company that holds licensing credentials. Some states offer domestic options of this nature to expand the range of opportunities offered by reputable, US-facing offshore sportsbooks. Our staff has reviewed, put together, and vetted the betting sites on this page and have verified that these sites are operating legally within the industry and always process their payouts for winning bets on football reliably and effectively.

The most popular sports league in the United States in terms of individual game viewership is also the most popular sport to bet on in the country with estimates of around $55 billion to be bet on the NFL for this season alone – meaning 98% of all NFL action comes from online offshore sportsbooks.

NFL odds and betting lines feature much tighter margins and lower numbers when compared to its collegiate counterpart. This is because the professional tier of the sport is the pinnacle for American football, and playing the game perfectly is expected each week.

Games in the NFL can literally be decided on one play where the outcome simply swings one way because one player gave 100% and his opponent only gave 99%, making the phrase “game of inches” hold even more weight due the sheer amount of games being decided on only an inch many times in the past with more to surely come in the future.

The professional NFL bettors can predict all of this on a regular basis since they routinely know which side holds more value and more importantly – which side can come up with that extra inch to guarantee a winning bet. Learn more from our page targeting legal NFL betting online.

College football is where American football all started and is by far the most popular college sport in the country today in terms of viewership and betting with roughly $45 billion being bet on this level of football annually.

The NCAA organizes and legislates the game of college football, and Division I is where most of the betting action takes place since it features the best college football athletes of today with many hoping to become the NFL stars of tomorrow.

“Chaos” is the name of the game in college football, since younger minds are more likely to crack when the pressure is on – regardless of talent level. The odds and betting lines may be bigger than the pro game of football, but don’t get fooled into thinking that a team much less talented has no chance of winning or what the top priority should be: covering.

Betting on college football games is like investing in stocks where even the most reliable stock, or team, can plummet after just one bad product release or game played in this analogy. It can be a volatile market, to say the least, but the best college football bettors, much like the best investors, can reliably predict when chaos will strike and reap the rewards, after all is said and done each Saturday night.

The XFL is back and this time the league is poised to last at least a few years giving the massive funding provided by Alpha Entertainment and owner Vince McMahon. The league is different from the NFL in many ways but one of the most notable differences is that the teams are owned by the XFL instead of franchise owners. There will also only be eight teams that compete in a ten-game season that concludes after a two-week playoff system.

The XFL is also geared to be gambling-friendly considering almost every team (except Florida) is located in a state that has passed or has pending sports betting legislation. Our guide to betting on the XFL will offer our advice on the best XFL sportsbooks and have you ready for the inaugural season of the revamped football league that is set to begin on February 8th, 2020.

What is Football Point Spread?

A point spread in football is an estimated number of points by which the favored team is predicted to defeat the underdogs.

Example: New England Patriots over New York Jets (-7.5)

Whenever a negative number is given, the team favored must win by more than the margin for your bet to payout. In the example, to win a bet on the Patriots requires the team to win by 8 points or more for the bet to payout. If a wager was placed on the Jets, the Jets don’t have to win the game, but instead, only need to lose by 7 or less points.

How Do Over/Under Bets Work?

The over/under in football is where the sportsbook sets a number for a statistic and a wager can be placed on whether the outcome of the statistic will be higher or lower than the established number.

Examples: New England Patriots vs. New York Jets (47)
Philadelphia Eagles 2018 Season Total Wins (O/U 10.5)

If 2 teams are shown, typically attached to a (O/U) to indicate an over/under, the number shown is the combined point total of both teams at the end of the game. If a bet is place on the over the total points scored in the game must be over 47, and if a bet is on the under then the total must be lower than 47. If both teams combine for exactly 47 points, then a bet is lost on both sides because bets are placed on the over or under and not the exact amount.

Futures with over/under odds are common too. Typically, this will be on a season win total or a end-of-season player statistic. As shown above, if the Eagles win total at the end of the season falls below 10.5 then the under wins, and if the total is above 10.5 the over wins. And again, if the set number is the outcome, then both the over and under lose.

Why Should I Bet on Futures Odds?

A futures bet on football is a wager placed ahead of time, sometimes weeks or months in advance, where the result and payout will not occur until a future date.

Example: Chicago Bears (+1200) to win Super Bowl 54

The most common futures wager in football each year will be on the Super Bowl. Odds for futures are simple: The +1200 indicates the payout in American odds, so to receive $1,200 if the Bears win the Super Bowl, a bet of $100 would need to be placed. Other ways to show futures odds may be with fractions (12/1) or decimals (13.00).

You can learn more about wagering options from our guide to understanding the different types of NFL bets and how they work.

Football fans typically are driven to follow their teams and players, gathering the latest news and information, and go into a season 'in the know'. Its a great way to get ahead of the game with an edge in calculating extra factors that may affect the betting lines and odds. Two great resources include the official websites for the NFL and the NCAAF.

College football is currently ranked second in terms of the most popular sports in America, right behind the NFL and just ahead of the MLB. Legal college football betting pulls in billions of dollars in wagering revenue every single year, and it is just getting more and more popular. One of the biggest reasons that college football betting is so popular is that there has been an increase in the number of people wagering at legal sports betting sites instead of traditional land-based sportsbooks.

Legal online sportsbooks are easy, convenient, and chock-full of fantastic special member benefits for college football fans. This page will focus on all of the major aspects of legal college football betting. We will begin by addressing the question “Is it legal to bet on college football?” We will then examine some of the major laws that pertain to sports wagering in America. We will also tackle other important legal issues like whether you will get in trouble for betting on college football and what the age requirements are. We will then unveil some of the best legal sports betting sites for NCAA football available over the Internet.

Is It Legal To Bet On College Football?

Yes, it is legal for US citizens to bet on college football. The trick is to find a good online sportsbook that properly follows the law, which not all of them do. Legal sports wagering sites do exist if you know where to look. First off, in order to be legal, an online sportsbook cannot be based inside the US unless it operates inside of one of the handful of states that have currently legalized sports betting, in which case only residents of and visitors to those states can use them.

If an online betting site is based and operates from overseas, however, it is exempt from US betting laws and is able to function legally. Most importantly, there is nothing in any federal or state law that says an American citizen cannot legally bet on college football or any other sport by using these sites. Indeed, all existing anti-sports-betting laws address only operators and service providers related to the industry and that operate inside US borders.

Laws That Affect Sports Betting In The United States

In the United States, there are two federal laws that prevent sportsbooks from taking root. The earliest of these dates back all the way back to 1961, when the mafia was starting to get heavily involved in illegal bookmaking schemes. Due to this influx of mob activity, Congress passed the Federal Wire Act, which made it a crime to use a wire communications facility to transfer wagers or bets (or information relating to wagers or bets) from one state to another. Whether the Wire Act did anything to actually curtail mob activity or just drive it further underground is another story.

The next, and most restrictive, sports betting law came about in 1992. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) – which was overturned as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in May 2018 – was the main reason why sportsbooks were banned practically everywhere in the US except for Nevada. Since Nevada already allowed full-service sports betting for years before PASPA was enacted, the state was exempted from the law. A few other states (Oregon, Delaware, and Montana) were given the option to make their own full-service sports betting laws but neglected the opportunity, leading to Nevada’s erstwhile monopoly on the pastime.

As if PASPA did not go far enough, fourteen years later Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA, 2006), which was in response to the growing popularity of Internet poker and betting sites. What the UIGEA did was to make it so a person cannot easily transfer money to or from an internet betting site, as the law went after any financial institution that “knowingly” processed such payments. The UIGEA is a heavily contested law, having been criticized for the sneaky was it was passed (it was attached to the end of a completely unrelated bill called the Safe Port Act) and also because some members of Congress did not have time to read the entire bill before it was passed.

The Wire Act and the UIGEA are still in force, but their combined effect in the industry is negligible, as there are sufficient legal workarounds to render them mostly moot.

Will I Get In Trouble For Betting On College Football?

No, you will not get into any trouble for betting on college football because none of the abovementioned laws applies to online sportsbooks that are based outside of the United States. The only thing these laws do is make it so sportsbooks cannot legally exist within the country except in the few states that explicitly allow them. These laws, however, do not prevent individual citizens from betting at an online sportsbook, nor do they criminalize such. In fact, there has never even been a case of any US resident getting into legal trouble for betting on sports over the Internet at offshore sportsbooks. If you sign up at any of these books, you have absolutely nothing to worry about – except, of course, growing your bankroll!

Legal Betting Age Requirements

The legal betting age can get a bit murky, especially in states that have vague or ill-defined laws. For example, states like California and Oregon have betting age limits that change depending on where you live in the state. Other states say almost nothing at all about the legal betting age. Most states, however, do have a set age requirement. The bare minimum is always going to be 18, no matter what state you are in, and it’ll never be higher than 21.

Most of you who are reading this are probably older than 21, but if you are younger and you are not sure what your state law says about the betting age, get in touch with a local government official and find out, because the consequences of underage gambling at an offshore site could be deleterious to your bank account. (As a point of clarification, all legal offshore sportsbooks merely require their members to be at least 18 in order to sign up and wager.)

Now that you know that it is legal to bet on college football, it is time for you to choose an NCAA betting site. Each of the online sportsbooks listed on this page embodies all the best qualities of Las Vegas-style legal sports gambling, with the added benefit of massive convenience. In addition, these books each come fully loaded with bonuses and rad features that will blow your mind! Of course, it goes without saying that these books are legal and legit, and signing up is always free. Indeed, we recommend that you join several such legal NCAA sportsbooks in order to shop lines and get the best bang for your buck every week of the college football season!

Bovada Sportsbook

There are multitudes of online sportsbooks on the Internet, but there is only one Bovada! For several decades, Bovada has been the premier betting site for both amateurs and professionals. Now home to millions of members all over the country, Bovada is one of the most popular and respected Internet betting sites in the world. Bovada offers college football fans a variety of wagering options, including NCAA moneyline odds, spread betting, totals, futures, and props. They offer dozens of different wager types, ranging from extremely easy to extremely difficult. You can be sure that when you join Bovada, you will not ever run out of fun ways to bet on NCAA football.

Placing a bet on college football at Bovada is very easy. Clicking on a game line will bring up your bet slip, into which you can plug in whatever numbers you want in order to figure out your risk versus reward. You don’t actually have to do much at all except play with the numbers, and the bet slip calculator does everything else. You can make all sorts of combination bets, including parlays, pleasers, teasers, etc. and combine different betting odds to maximize your potential payouts. Bovada makes betting on college football so easy, your great-great-grandma could do it. So quit procrastinating already and sign up for a Bovada account today. You will be so glad you did. And, with Bovada’s $250 Sports Welcome Bonus, you can be $250 richer, too! (Please be aware that Bovada does not currently accept new members from Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, or New York.)

BetOnline Sportsbook

Betting on NCAA football is a popular pastime in the United States, with billions of dollars being wagered annually. One of the best places to bet on college football is BetOnline. It is a Panama-based online sportsbook that lets you bet on all your favorite NCAAF teams. BetOnline has been one of the top sportsbooks in the world for over 25 years, catering to sports betting fans in every state of the US. That’s right, players in all 50 states are welcome to join this amazing online sportsbook. There is no joining fee, there is no commitment, and there are no strings attached.

Once you become a member of BetOnline, you will gain exclusive access to a whole host of special features. These include bonuses that will save you gobs of money, payout and deposit methods that make transferring funds a quick and easy task (including support for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, and DASH), and extras like mobile betting, which transforms your iPhone, iPad, or Android device into a pocket-sized sportsbook. Other great things about BetOnline include great customer service and live in-game play, a revolutionary new feature that lets you bet on any game in real-time as all the action unfolds. Take advantage of these and other great special features by signing up with BetOnline today. You won’t regret it. Best of all, new BetOnline members who join now are eligible for the site’s 50% deposit match bonus, which is worth up to $1000 to put towards your favorite NCAA wagers.

SportsBetting Sportsbook

The next time you want to bet on NCAA football, forget about that trip to Vegas. Instead, sign up at SportsBetting, one of the biggest and baddest online sportsbooks in the world. Here, you will find the best odds and wager types, the most comprehensive funding methods (including American Express, Bitcoin, and a host of altcoin options), and deals and promotions. Trust us, Vegas has nothing on SportsBetting. In fact, in many ways, SportsBetting improves upon the venerated Vegas experience. There is the obvious convenience factor, of course, but SportsBetting also provides a better variety of customer options than what you would find at any of the big Sin City casinos.

Speaking of great customer options, you will love SportsBetting’s amazing 50% Welcome Bonus. When you sign up with SportsBetting, they will match your deposit by 50% up to $1000. That said, SportsBetting has tons of other great bonuses, too, such as their lifetime reload bonus, which matches each new deposit by 20% (up to $1000) for the life of your account. SportsBetting also offers a $50 Mobile Betting Free Play, which gives you a reimbursement of up to $50 if your first bet loses, and a $25 Free Live In-Game Betting bonus, which is similar to the Mobile Betting Free Play. With so many ways to save money, it is no wonder SportsBetting is one of the top online sportsbooks in the world!

5Dimes Sportsbook

Discerning sports bettors who know the difference between a high-quality and a low-quality online sportsbook choose 5Dimes every time. This is because no other site gives the player as much control over the action as 5Dimes does. You can choose from a list of dozens of the most popular sports and games, including college football. Odds types include moneyline bets, spread bets, totals, futures, and props. Wager types are extremely varied as well, and they include straight bets, parlays, pleasers, if bets, round robins, reverses, and more. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of 5Dimes’ excellent service is that the site allows players to buy points on almost any line, essentially giving them an infinite number of alternate lines to choose from! And when it comes to deposit and withdrawal options, 5Dimes has a method to suit your needs.

One of the areas in which 5Dimes really excels is customer service. You can contact 5Dimes any time, day or night, by calling one of their several phone numbers. If you do not want to talk on the phone, you can always email them or talk via Live Help on the site itself, which is extremely convenient. 5Dimes’ great customer service department only further goes to show how much they care about their loyal customers. If you ever have an experience to share, whether it is positive or negative, or a question, comment, or concern, 5Dimes will be there to listen and assist. The same cannot be said for most other Internet betting sites that you’re likely to come across.

There are a number of ways to fund your NCAA betting accounts, but the fastest legal college football deposits are unequivocally credit or debit cards (and in some cases, Visa gift cards that work for international purchases). However, these aren’t the best options if you wish to deposit more than a few thousand dollars at once, as their limits are quite low. For fast deposits of larger amounts, Bitcoin (and other altcoins like Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, and DASH where supported) is the way to go. These typically transfer in just a few minutes, and they come with no added processing fees.

For those who wish to use more traditional methods, you can fund your NCAAF betting accounts via cashier’s checks, money orders, bank wires, and even services like Western Union or MoneyGram. However, all of these have comparatively high service fees and take several days – sometimes up to a week or more – to show up in your sportsbook account.

Fastest Legal NCAA Football Payouts

Bitcoin is hands-down the fastest legal NCAA football payout method, as are other cryptocurrencies like those mentioned above. With crypto, you can have your money transferred to your personal account(s) within just a few hours on average, and there are no associated fees to worry about.

You can opt to be paid out via check, money order, or bank wire as well, but these withdrawal methods all take several days to clear, and you could be waiting up to two weeks to receive your winnings. If time is of the essence, you will definitely want to use a Bitcoin or altcoin solution when claiming your legal college football betting winnings.

Mobile college football betting is easily the most accessible and convenient way for the vast majority of gamblers and sports bettors to enjoy their favorite pastime. All you need in order to have full mobile access to your NCAA betting site of choice is a modern smartphone (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc.) or tablet with a cellular data or Wi-Fi connection. Most of the top legal online sportsbooks are not geo-fenced, meaning that you can take your sports wagering on the go across the country, and you can access your betting site’s full suite of features from the palm of your hand. Keep your bookie in your pocket with mobile college football betting!

In-game betting, aka live betting, is the newest, most immersive form of sports wagering you can get. Unlike traditional sports betting, college football live betting allows you to actually wager on dynamic betting lines during the games themselves! As the games progress, their moneyline bets, spread bets, and totals bets will all be modified on the fly to reflect the action up till that point, and odds will change frequently.

As such, in order to fully take advantage of college football live betting, you need to make sure you have a steady Internet connection and a computer or mobile device open to your sportsbook’s live-updating odds boards for the game in question. Just remember that, with live betting, you don’t set it and forget it – you have to be on your toes and make the play as soon as you see favorable odds, or you might miss out on the biggest payout of the day.

In order to place legal bets at online sportsbooks for NCAA football, you need to sign up with a betting site. Check out several in the process, and join the one that is compatible to what you are looking for from and odds standpoint, as well as one that meets your deposit requirements, withdrawal requirements, and other factors. Sportsbooks will have all of this information available to you even before you commit to an account.

Like the NFL, college football has as many ways to bet on the sport as any other sport or league out there. The nature of the sport and how betting odds are set up allow for this. As a result, there are many ways in which bettors are able to place a wager on college football, whether it's on a game, prop, futures line or a combination thereof.

Straight Betting On CFB Games - If you make a bet at a sportsbook on NCAA football where you place money down for one outcome on a single wager it is known as a straight bet. There are no adjustments, or other outcomes that come into play. There are many different kinds of straight bets, such as game lines, props, and futures.

College Football Parlay Wagers - The appealing aspect of placing a parlay on NCAA football is the potential to make a lot of money on the return. But the high reward comes with high risk. Parlays involve several different bets to hit ultimately for one large outcome. The trick is making sure all of those small bets within the parlay hit. If they don't, then the parlay is not a winner. Bettors can often form many types of parlays as a sportsbook.

NCAa Football Pleaser Bets - If a bettor doesn't like a betting line, they can essentially buy points to adjust it. Or in the case of a pleaser, it's almost like doing the exact opposite. A pleaser shifts a betting line to make it more difficult on the bettor to win. The point to do this though would be because the payout on the betting line increases. Bettors are making the wager harder to win for a bigger profit.

CFB Teaser Betting - This is the bet where bettors are buying points to make the bet easier to win against the spread. Teasers do the opposite of a pleaser, bringing the betting line and adjusting it closer. The plus side is that the bet is statistically easier to win. The minus is that a lot of the payout can be sacrificed. But the thought here is that a win is better than a loss.

Other Ways To Wager On CFB Games - When you look around at a sportsbook into some of the rules and things of that nature you will probably find out about the different bets that can be made. College football will have plenty of options. In addition to the ones that we've already talked about will be some other ones. Things like an if-bet, which is similar to parlay wager could available. Be sure to consult the sportsbook if you have any betting type questions.

We are going to separate college football lines into a few different categories. During the season bettors will be able to wager on games through the game lines formed at sportsbooks, prop odds, and futures wagers on conference and national championships.

College Football Game Lines - The game lines are broken up into three betting odds. They are a point spread, for which the favorite and underdog are established in order to cover a line, a moneyline, in which no spread is formed and the winner is bet, and a game total, which directly relates to the points scored in a matchup.

College Football Props - Team props, player props, and futures wagers also come along with betting college football. Props can be with games or relate to the season on the whole. Team win totals, and individual player performances are popular.

College Football Futures - In the case of futures bets it's all about the BCS Championship odds and who will win the national title. Other futures wagers includes conference and division betting lines formed prior to the start of each season.

To help increase your chances of winning bets made on NCAA football, check out a few strategies that can be implemented into your betting, below. These are pretty basic, but a lot of times it's know what to look for and how to manage bets that can produce more wins

Legal Betting On Football Teams

Of all the different resources and research materials at your fingertips, we suggest you consult betting trends if you are looking to be a game. Betting trends are very helpful for wagers made against the spread, and on the over/under point total. Trends are broken down into different categories, and can really help paint a picture of what you might expect and what trends teams are playing towards.

Betting On Football Legal

Parlay wagers are very popular because bettors can risk very little to win a lot. With that comes the lower chance of winning, but if a parlay is lost it won't be the end of the world. Bettors can often risk $5 and sometime profit thousands depending on the games chosen and the extent of the parlay. These wagers also make things exciting as they span many games throughout the day.

Betting On Football Games Legal

Bettors will have different methods and stick to them, and while that could work we suggest developing new strategies as you progress in your betting. Don't stick with one method until you've experimented with other possible ones to maybe find a better one. There are many different theories out there, and there are many that have a lot of merit to them. Don't be afraid to expand your horizons.