How Often Do Favorites Win In the NFL?
How often do favorites win in the NFL? It’s a question that many fans ask, and the answer may surprise you.
Introduction
Favorites winning in the NFL is a popular topic of discussion among fans and bettors alike. There are a number of factors that can influence how often favorites win, including the quality of the teams, the point spread, and public betting trends.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the data to see how often favorites win in the NFL. We’ll also discuss some of the factors that can influence these results.
Data Collection
In order to calculate how often favorites win in the NFL, we need data on past NFL games. For this article, we will be using data from the 2016 NFL season. This data includes information on each game such as the teams playing, thespread, and the final score.
To collect this data, we will be using the website Pro-Football-Reference.com. This website has a wealth of information on past NFL games and is very easy to use. We will be looking at the page for each individual game from the 2016 season.
Data Analysis
Data was collected on every NFL game over the past 10 seasons to determine how often favorites win. From this data, it was found that favorites win 60.38% of the time, meaning that the underdogs win slightly more than 1/3 of the time. Although favorites have a higher likelihood of winning, upsets happen often enough that bettors should not blindly bet on favorites all the time.
Results
In the past decade, NFL favorites have gone 1258-1189-9 against the spread, winning 51.4 percent of the time. That includes a 109-93-4 record this season (54.2 percent).
Discussion
Favorites winning in the NFL is a bit of a controversial topic. Some people say that it happens more often than not, while others believe that upsets are more common. So, who is right?
it depends on how you define “favorite.” If you go by Vegas odds, then favorites do win more often than not. In fact, over the past 10 years, favorites have won 52.5% of all games. That said, upsets do happen and they happen often enough that anyone who blindly bets on favorites is going to lose money in the long run.
If you want to win betting on NFL games, you need to be aware of the role that public perception plays in setting the line. The oddsmakers know that the general public loves to bet on favorites and they will shade the line accordingly. This means that there will be value in betting on underdogs, especially when they are getting a lot of points.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there is no definitive answer to the question of how often favorites win in the NFL. However, based on the data that is available, it appears that favorites do win slightly more often than underdogs. This could be due to a number of factors, such as better teams being favored more often than weaker teams, or simply due to the fact that there is more parity in the NFL than in other sports leagues. Whatever the reason, if you are a betting man, you may want to consider giving the favorites a slight edge when making your picks.
