Betting on Football First Half Lines
How many times has the team you wagered on staked out a decent lead, only to let it slip away in the second half? Fans of the Bears (led 20-0 but lost 29-23) and Titans (led 21-7 but lost 31-28) and to a lesser extent the Vikings, Seahawks and Chiefs understood your pain this weekend. If you have never tried betting on First Half lines you are missing a valuable tool from your wagering arsenal. That is the topic for this week’s column. I will focus on the NFL for today but please note that most of what you read today will be directly applicable to college football as well. Books offer first half wagering for the simple purpose of increasing handle. The more you bet, the more (hopefully) the book earns. There is not much secret in how First Half lines are derived - generally it just the pointspread for the game cut in half with a half-point to full-point adjustment against the favorite. For example, the Sunday Night Falcons-Bengals game had a pointspread of –7.5 and a First Half spread ...