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Finding Value in the Line

The National Football League from a handicapping perspective is not so much a battle between teams, but rather a contest versus the prevailing point spread. Winning teams in the NFL also take home the wagering dollars 84% of the time, while 16% of the games in a typical season turn the straight-up loser into a point spread winner.

The books offer not only the posted line, but the opportunity to purchase a half point for an additional 10% vig, more if the bettor is looking to move on or off a three-point line. Most establishments allow players to purchase as many as three points.

While it is immensely satisfying to save a wager that would have been lost had an extra half point or more not been purchased, buying points rarely improves a bottom line over the course of a season. It also carries the liability that some gamblers would make bets thinking that the extra half point or more will make all the difference in how strong their play on the game is. That can create bad bets that cost more when they lose.

Here is a hard and fast rule to best ensure long range profits: Don’t buy points.

That is not to say when a point spread is purchased and what the line is isn’t critical to maximizing profits. The ability to anticipate if a line is best bought now for a selection, or wait until closer to game time, is a valuable asset. NFL lines are not parimutuel, but rather locked in when the player places his bet.

To assist players in taking advantage of the best line available, the Qoxhi website shows opening, current and projected moves on each spread. If that graph shows that the Kansas Chiefs opened as an eight-point favorite over the Houston Texans in a Divisional Playoff game and the chart on the Qoxhi site shows that we anticipate the line to move up to nine before kickoff, one can know that a wager on the Chiefs is best done early, at the current line.

In fact, this year the Chiefs did open as an eight-point favorite and while we thought the line would climb to nine, in the final hour before kickoff the number actually moved to Kansas City by 9½. When the Chiefs took an intentional safety in the closing seconds of the game, they had their lead reduced from 11 to 9 with a final score of 23-14. Those investors seizing the early line won, the bettors wagering late didn’t.

In the 2024 season, more NFL lines came into play than in any of the 14 years we have been offering managed accounts that capitalized on advantageous early lines. In a typical season, three or four games are affected by early purchases versus the closing number; this season that number rose to nine.

The first one, was only the second time in our history that a recommendation to purchase an early line actually turned what would have been a push into a loss. It happened in the second week of the 2024 season when our early call recommended a purchase of the Houston Texans giving 6½ points over the Chicago Bears. We anticipated the line would move up to seven points on game day. It didn’t, it moved down to six and the game landed on that number with Houston winning the game 19-13.

That game tuned out to have our early buy turn a push into a loss, but the other eight contests affected by the spread all showed better lines early than the closing numbers and resulted in three would-be losses ending with a push, four would-be pushes resulting in wins, and that one Chiefs playoff game that turned a would-be loss into a winner.

What does getting the better line mean to the bottom line?

In a typical season it raises profits 12 to 16 percent … in 2024, the gain was 40%.

Having the right team is important, betting on them at the right time further shifts wagering on football from a gamble to an investment.

Basic	107%
Aggressive	101%
Top Pick Double	87%
Top Pick Aggressive	84%
Top Pick Exclusive	37%
Triple Play	112%

NFL STRATEGIES

Real Results

by Dennis Ranahan

“You’ll never make money in this business being honest,” Joe told me over lunch in 1986.

Joe was working the other side of the counter, a bookie, who wore a Cheshire Cat grin as his clients bragged about how they were going to win this year because they had discovered the keys that always pointed to a winner. He knew that the more confident his clients were the more money they would be willing to risk and the more profits his book would generate.

POINT SPREADS

Money rated selections posted two hours before kickoff

HEADLINE PLAY

Worst to First

by Dennis Ranahan

Feb 18, 2026

The Las Vegas Raiders have the first pick in the 2026 National Football League draft which will be staged in Pittsburgh beginning on April 23. The Raiders “earned” the first pick based on compiling the worst record in football last year. It is a case of the league rewarding failure. That is something Al Davis said was fundamentally wrong.

His opinion was based on the premise that success should be rewarded. When he adopted that opinion the Raiders were always picking late in the first round because they were a championship caliber team and as common in the playoffs as Santa Claus is on Christmas. Today, if he was still with us, he might alter his thinking.

The NFL not only gives preference to the worst teams with the highest draft choices, in recent years they adopted a formula for the schedule that has the teams with the worst records one season playing a perceived softer schedule the next year. It is worth noting that the 2025 AFC Champion New England Patriots got a last place schedule based on their dismal 2024 season which landed them at the bottom of the standings in the AFC East Division.

Teams that finish in last place are “awarded” games against teams in interconference matchups against other last place teams. First place teams have opponents that also finished in first place and the same pattern holds true for second and third place finishers. What that means is that a last place team will have three games each year against other teams that also finished last the prior season.

In practice, that means last year the Patriots had on their schedule the Las Vegas Raiders, Cleveland Browns and Tennessee Titans. The team that finished first in the AFC East in 2024, the Buffalo Bills, were forced to battle the Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans. This is another example of the league’s penchant for competition.

Does it work?

Well, since the NFL adopted the schedule based on the previous year’s results, we have had an increase in last place teams one season jumping to the playoffs the next year. Three years ago, it was the Houston Texans, two seasons ago the Los Angeles Chargers, last year the Denver Broncos and the Patriots this season.

Handicapping Dilemma

by Dennis Ranahan

Feb 7, 2026

There are times when handicapping is at odds with the actual football game matchup. I find myself looking for an edge not necessarily revealed in rushing and passing stats, but more from a motivational or trend perspective. I have a natural tendency to gravitate to underdogs for the simple reason that if I can find an underdog I consider a solid prospect to win the game, the point spread is never a hindrance and can be the difference in gaining a win.

I hate rooting for a point spread favorite that late in a game lead by nine points or more and are playing to win while giving a bleep about the point spread. Announcers use terms when an underdog scores a late touchdown that cuts into a deficit but doesn’t change the straight-up winner like “window dressing” or “meaningless.” But if that late score changed the point spread decision in my world it meant everything.

The teams on the field didn’t have any extra effort to defend the late score either, but for the bettors that “meaningless” touchdown made all the difference.

In XXIX the San Francisco 49ers were favored by 19½ points, a line in the Super Bowl bigger than any since the New York Jets win over the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl III. The mismatch on the field had the smart money taking the bloated line, while I decided to wager on the clearly better football team.

Early in the fourth quarter Jerry Rice caught a touchdown pass from Steve Young to extend the Niners advantage to 49-18.

Safe? Right?

Name It

by Dennis Ranahan

Feb 6, 2026

I stopped at a Starbucks to get a latte on my walk between the BART station and the National Football League media headquarters at Moscone Center in San Francisco. About a block from the NFL festivities on 4th street I saw a couple lining up for a photograph in front of a Super Bowl sign.

The lady, who I assumed was the man’s wife, was positioning her husband under a Super Bowl sign and raised her phone to snap the shot. “Would you both like to be in the picture,” I offered and she thanked me and I requested she hold my drink, so I didn’t drop her phone while snapping the photo. I made sure the Super Bowl sign was in the shot with them and took the picture twice. Isn’t that what we always do just to make sure we got a good picture.

As the lady handed me back my drink while I surrendered her phone her husband said, “Thanks Dennis.”

It caught me by surprise. How did he know who I was? I asked him, and he laughed and said, “Your name is on your Starbucks cup.”

Okay, the name on the Starbucks cup I was carrying was a pretty good indicator of what my name was. But it didn’t have to be. The Starbucks employee could have misunderstood what I said and put the wrong name on the cup and I let it go. I could have been with a friend who ordered two lattes and used his name on both of them. I could have picked up the wrong cup on the way out of the coffee shop.

But none of those longshots happened. It was my name on the cup I had handed over and the appreciative gentleman thanked me by name.

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

by Dennis Ranahan

Feb 5, 2026

Beginning in 1975, the National Football League adopted the playoff seeding based on regular season records. In the 50 Super Bowls played since the seeding rules were put in place top seeds have advanced to the big game 57 times and second seeds 24 times. The remaining Super Bowl appearances were by teams with a third seed (5), fourth seed (11), fifth seed (3) and sixth seed (2).

In 2020, the NFL added a seventh seed in each conference, but no team that qualified for the playoffs out of that slot has yet advanced to the Super Bowl.

This year, we have a number one seed, the Seattle Seahawks, matching up against a second seed, the New England Patriots. The most common seed matches have been between first and second seeded teams along with top seeds versus each other, both have occurred 15 times since 1975.

The top seeds have beaten the second seeds ten times in their previous 14 contests … but against the point spread, the number one versus number two seeds are 7 and 7.

One looking for an edge in Sunday’s game involving the Seahawks and Patriots would have to look somewhere other than the seed. It is worth noting that on the four occasions when the number two seed was favored over the top seed they beat the spread three out of four times.

In Super Bowl XVII, the Miami Dolphins were the second seed and favored over the top seed Washington Redskins. That is the only time that the top seed getting points won the game. The Redskins beat the Dolphins 27-17 as a three-point underdog.