How to bet on college football
College football is bet the same way as the pro game, with the same spreads, moneylines and totals. What changes is the size of the board, the size of the mismatches and how much the book knows about the teams.
The spread, the moneyline and the total work exactly as they do on Sunday. If those are new to you, start with how to bet on football. The standard price is still -110, and you still need 52.38 percent winners to break even.
A bigger, stranger board
The pro league has 32 teams. The top level of college football has well over a hundred, and a Saturday card runs to dozens of games. The mismatches are bigger, so spreads of 30 points and more are ordinary, mostly early in the season. Styles differ far more between college teams than between pro teams, and the totals show it with a much wider range.
The information is thinner, too. Injury news is less uniform than in the pro game and reaches the market unevenly, and the rosters turn over every year as players graduate, transfer and leave early, which makes last season's team a rough guide to this one at best.
What the book doesn't know
No book knows a hundred-odd teams the way it knows 32, and I'd be lying if I said otherwise.
On the big games the number is strong and the limits are high. On a game between two small-conference teams the line is thinner, the limits are lower, and the number moves quickly when someone who follows that conference bets it. That low limit is the book's defense against knowing less than the player. It's the first thing I'd have done in its place.
That cuts both ways for you. Softer numbers do exist in college football, but to use one you have to know more than the line does, and having watched one of the teams last week is not that. The one honest way I know to get there is to pick a conference and learn it properly.
Laying a fortune
A top team playing a weak one might be -2000 on the moneyline. You risk $2,000 to win $100, and you need to win 95.24 percent of the time to break even. Twenty winners pay for one loser.
People get around the price by parlaying heavy favorites. Three teams at -2000 turn $100 into a $15.76 win, and even if every price is fair, that ticket loses about one time in seven. I wouldn't put my money there. You're risking a hundred dollars for lunch money on three games where an upset is rare but not unheard of.
Big spreads have their own problem. With a team favored by 35, the bet stops being about which side is better and becomes about when the coach takes his starters out, and what the backups do in a fourth quarter that doesn't matter to anyone but you.
Rules that change by state
The college menu is not the same everywhere. Some regulators don't allow props on college players, and some don't allow bets on schools from their own state. It depends on where you live, and your book's board will show you what it can take.
Bowl season
Bowl games need their own care. Players sit out, coaches change jobs, and some teams want to be there more than others, so the opening number is made before much of that is known and moves as the news comes out. Check who is playing before you bet, not after.
Where the book makes its money
In the same places as the pro game, with more room. A Saturday with dozens of games is an invitation to a long parlay, and a six-teamer at -110 a leg carries a cut of about 24 percent (the parlays page shows how it builds). The other edge is plain volume: more games means more bets, and every bet pays the cut.
So I'd bet fewer games than the board offers, since passing costs nothing, and shop every price, because college numbers tend to differ between books more than pro numbers do and half a point is common. Stake 1 or 2 percent of your bankroll a game and set a loss limit for the Saturday. Noon to midnight is a long time to be chasing.
There are too many teams for the book to know them all. There are too many for you as well.