Buying Points in NFL Football

If you bet on football, you’ve probably seen an option to buy a half-point or more in exchange for slightly altered odds on a point-spread bet. For instance, if you were betting on a game where the spread was -5 at -110 odds, you might have the option of taking -4.5 at -120, or -4 at -130. This allows you to tweak lines with only a seemingly small price to pay. But is this a good deal?

It’s important to remember that if we want to win at sports betting, we have to be very conscious about the odds we’re giving and receiving at all times. What feels like a small change can actually be quite significant, especially when we’re talking about bets with close to even odds (like spread bets). For instance, we only need to win a -110 bet 52.4% of the time to break even. But change that to -130, and we now need to win 56.5% to stay out of the red.

That might not seem like a big change, and it’s not – if the point we bought is enough to get us those few extra wins we need. Unfortunately, this is almost never the case. Very few games will swing from wins to losses on the change of a point (even fewer on a half-point), which means that buying a point will usually cost us money in the long run.

However, there are exceptions. The biggest one comes when we can buy a half-point to move a line off of -7.5, -7, -3.5, -3, +2.5, +3, +6.5 and +7. Why are these numbers so significant? The most common winning margins in NFL football games are three and seven, so turning those numbers into a push or a win can mean a big edge for us. The numbers bear out that these are the most profitable spots at which to take a half-point. The numbers around three are the best of all; moving a half-point here is usually worth much more than we have to pay for it! These half-points tend to become even more valuable in games we expect to be low scoring, since points will be at a premium and the margins of victory will tend to be smaller. And as with many football bets, it’s important to keep in mind that buying points works better in the NFL than in the more unpredictable college game.

Unfortunately, the sportsbooks know that these are the key points too, and they’re not usually willing to give them up so easily. Some books won’t let you take half-points at certain spots, while others purposely set lines to make it unprofitable to do so. Other bookmakers might let you take that half-point, but charge you enough to make it unprofitable. If you do find a book willing to give you cheap half-points no matter what the line is, stick with them – you’ll find plenty of spots where buying points becomes profitable.

For the most part, buying points in modern sports betting isn’t a profitable enterprise. In most cases, the points you get aren’t worth the odds you have to give up to get them. And in the rare cases where it is worthwhile, the sportsbooks usually know better than to let us have them cheaply. But if you do find that rare book that will give you a key half-point for the right price on a game you like, don’t hesitate to take it.