The evolution of technology has led to a logical place where sports bettors are using computer predictions to inform their bets and improve their success with gambling on popular sports leagues like the NFL and more.
Back in the day, humans were the ones inputting data in a computer. Then the internet made it popular to search for data that we could analyze ourselves in spreadsheets. Now, we are seeing artificial intelligence (AI) models that will be able to create and analyze the data for us almost instantaneously.
This should get even more useful as AI gets better, but we wanted to provide some context and understanding for how you can leverage computer predictions for NFL games to improve your betting success at the top NFL sportsbooks.
Better Than Your Gut
Even if you watch a lot of NFL and crunch numbers in your spare time, it is hard to have success by only trusting your gut for predictions on the spread and total in NFL games. Most of us would bat around .500 if we only winged it and trusted our gut, and some unfortunate souls would probably be closer to 40% correct, which will have you in the red quickly.
The NFL can be so unpredictable where the games you expected to be shootouts are defensive grinds, and the games you scoffed at for scoring potential finish 30-27. For example, a 2023 game between the Patriots and Bills that ended 29-25 finished with more points than games between the Chiefs-Dolphins (21-14) and Dolphins-Eagles (31-17).
That is why the scoring averages even out by season’s end, but so often games take on a different script than the one that made sense in our mind based on all the available data and research.
The Truth
The truth is most of us will not consistently win 55% to 60% of our bets, let alone anything higher, by just using our gut. This is why using a computer prediction model is valuable because it will stick to a process that is consistent and repeatable for success. It will utilize more data than most of us are consuming on a weekly basis for these NFL games, and it will make its predictions by analyzing those numbers and creating a final score that we can then use to inform our bet for the spread or total.
For a bettor only trusting their gut, they could look at a game and handicap it with a generalization that “this team has been destroyed the last 3 weeks, so maybe they’ll step up today against a division foe they usually play well against.” Maybe that pick works out and the underdog covers, but the computer prediction will compare all the games over the years where teams of similar quality faced off and what happened. The spread and total themselves are important variables in making predictions too.
Humans may be able to use “gut feels” for some advantageous picks that a computer could miss. For example, if you heard Patrick Mahomes had the flu 24 hours before gameday, it was snowy weather in Denver, it was 19-8 when they met a few weeks ago, the return of Justin Simmons has helped the secondary improve, and Denver really wants to end this 16-game losing streak to the Chiefs at home, then you could see how backing Denver +7.5 might make a lot of sense.
Denver did in fact win that game 24-9 as it was the worst Kansas City performance in over 2 years. Maybe the computer models haven’t developed a good flu variable yet, but there are models that will account for things like injuries and weather.
Computer Predictions Save You Time Doing Research
Injuries can be hard to factor into our analysis, because we never truly know when “game-time decision” means the player is at 85% and will be fine, or when it means “they’re going to bow out after a drive because they shouldn’t have been playing this week.”
But injuries aside, we just mentioned the weather, which can be a forgotten factor in those outdoor games later in the season. This is on top of already trying to factor in the strengths and weaknesses of the team and their opponent in each game, and conflating that with recent performance by the teams, historical outcomes by teams of a similar caliber in games with similar spreads and totals, and any recent matchup history between the teams that could be useful.
Start researching all of this for one game and it could be a decent time commitment. Multiply that by up to as many as 16 games in a week, and we could be looking at hours of research that many of us do not have.
That is why trusting a good computer model is a huge time saver as you can feel confident it has quickly grinded the data to make these predictions based on good inputs that matter. Saving time is always important.
The Computer Is More Objective Than You
So far, we have established that AI predictions are more consistent and repeatable than your gut, and they save you precious time doing research. The other thing they do is cut down on human bias to give more objective predictions.
Let’s just admit it, most of us are fans first before bettors, and we have our blind spots with biases. There are certain teams or players we don’t like and don’t trust, and there are some teams and players we have too much trust in, and they let us down. If they let us down enough times, they become part of the “banned list” for bets, which is not a good strategy in the long term as no one stays down for too long when it comes to spreads and over/unders.
A computer does not share these feelings, and they just want to crunch the cold, hard data and give us the best prediction based on that. With a league that has weekly games like the NFL, it is easy to savor each game as a big event unlike the NBA or NHL where they play 82 games, or the MLB with 162 games. With 17 games in a regular season in the NFL, we tend to be more subjective and let our fandom get in the way of things.
But the computer models are not biased and that is a great thing to keep in mind, because football fans can be very passionate, and mixing the heart with the head is usually a bad way to bet on games.
Use AI Predictions to Spot Outliers
Finally, we wanted to single out what might be the best part of any good NFL computer predictions model: spotting outliers.
The oddsmakers at Vegas are in fact outstanding at their jobs. If you look at games with a 3.5-point home favorite or with a 44.5 over/under, the historical results will show you that each side usually hits close to 50% of the time. They do a great job – scary good at times – of setting those lines.
Finding an edge is hard as most games will finish close to the spread and total lines. But this is why you need to focus on the outliers, those extremes that are far above or below the projected line.
For example, if a game has a total of 44 points and the computer prediction is a 24-21 final, that is probably a soft over to bet on just from that prediction. But if a game with a total of 44 points has a 34-20 final prediction, a full 10 points above the line, then that is a game you need to examine more closely as that may be an over that hits with ease.
Those extreme outliers are the best games to target, and remember, you never need to come up with a play on every game on the NFL schedule that week. You just need to find your spots if you want to maximize your success.
Regardless of your feelings over using AI models, the fact is if you don’t have a good, consistent system for how you make your picks, you will likely not outperform a good computer model over a long period. Consistency and results you can repeat are crucial to gambling success. With the technology at our fingertips these days, there is no reason not to seek some help from computer predictions.
