Even though hockey news is huge right now, the NBA playoffs are in the middle of their schedule and the MLB season is starting to heat up, the NFL is always going to be the big kid on the sports betting playground and it is never too early to start thinking about next season. But how much do you have to think about kick returns?

Those who play at sports betting sites will tell you that kick returns are decreasing in importance as the NFL is trying to limit the hard hits suffered by special-teams players. More and more teams are simply telling their players to kneel on the ball so the offense can start at the 20-yard-line. Before the 2011 season, the NFL decided to move kickoffs up five yards to the 35-yard-line and that reduced the number of concussions by approximately 40%, which is what the rule set out to do. Many kickers are just booting the ball out of the back of the end zone anyway because of the added five yards, and many returners aren’t getting a chance.

However, teams that have a player like Chicago’s Devin Hester can make some noise if they get a chance to return it, or they can make a team think about what they’re going to do in regards to kicking off; they may overthink it and the kicker ends up going out of bounds, which is a penalty.

However, kickoffs are slowly being phased out of the game and they shouldn’t be a major consideration when you’re doing your online betting.

Even NHL hockey news will take a backseat to the NFL no matter the time of year, and a lot of sports betting sharps are starting to think about the upcoming regular season. There are a number of factors to consider when you’re making your picks and one that many players don’t put a lot of thought into is the interception, but they can have an effect on your play.

First off, if a team has a quarterback that is prone to picks, that team probably isn’t going to have great odds at the best online sports betting sites, either on a game-to-game basis or overall when it comes to NFL futures. The turnover battle can win or lose you many games and if you come out on the negative end of that statistic, chances are you’re not going to be playing for the Super Bowl any time soon.

However, it also affects your totals betting because a team that is constantly battling interceptions are going to be throwing away opportunities to score points, especially if they’re doing this inside the red zone. That makes it incredibly hard to pinpoint how many a team can score on any given week.

Interceptions have a huge affect on all aspects of your betting, so make sure you do your research and see which quarterbacks are going to spend more time throwing it to the other team. Their team should be the one you look to avoid at most sports betting sites.

When you’re checking out the NBA standings, following the NHL playoffs or you’re a Major League Baseball fanatic, the NFL is never too far out of the mind of most sports fans and there are a number of factors to consider when you’re betting on NFL football lines.

You should always check out the trends before heading to your sports betting book, and there are different trends and records you should take into account. For any sort of split (a record in a certain situation) between two teams, you should only go back about five years because teams aren’t going to stay together for much longer than that (this also works in college, where most players are there for four years at most). In the pro game, players are switching teams left and right in the free-agent market, so you don’t have to look at head-to-head records for teams from back in the 1970s.

The best trends and records to go over are, obviously, head-to-head records; home and away records (how teams do in a certain stadium or city); record against teams in the same division; how teams do against teams with a winning or losing record; and many others that you’ll find as you’re doing your research. In this day and age with technology helping, you can find information on any statistics or trends you can conjure up, so don’t be afraid to think outside the box when making your online betting picks.

Hockey news is starting to get all the attention with the playoffs on the horizon, but football betting fans and players are always thinking about the gridiron and there are all sorts of ways you can bet on football. For example, you can bet on the outcome of a quarter or a half of a game, and there are ways you can use trends to help you find success on those wagers.

Much like those betting on baseball can use trends to aid their wagering on American’s Pastime, football betting cappers can use past trends when betting on quarters and halves, and it’s actually quite simple. It really all comes down to research, and you have to be willing to put the work in.

Some teams are either slow or fast starters, and you can go back through their past games to figure out which side of the fence they fall on, which will give you a good idea of how to bet on a quarter or half wager. You also have to take a few things into consideration, such as a team that jumps out to a big lead and will likely take their foot off the gas in the second half, or injuries that occur throughout the game.

Some sports betting players like to jazz it up and stray away from normal bets, or they could use quarters and halves as a way to hedge on earlier bets. But the key is to research all the trends and past outcomes before making your online betting pick.

MLB blogs are starting to hit top gear as spring training is winding down, but the NFL draft is just around the corner as well and here is a look at how the top five picks may shake out.

1. Indianapolis

After all that has gone on with the Peyton Manning saga, there is no way the Colts pass on Stanford’s Andrew Luck. If you bet on March Madness odds, he would be Kentucky, the No.1 overall seed.

2. Washington

The Redskins traded a slew of draft picks to St. Louis, but they’ll pick Robert Griffin III, the Heisman-winning pivot out of Baylor who will inject some life into this awful franchise.

3. Minnesota

The Vikings will stick with USC offensive lineman Matt Kalil, and he’ll play tackle to protect Christian Ponder’s blindside. They also need to open holes for Adrian Peterson, especially as he is coming off a knee injury and the Vikings may want him to run outside more.

4. Cleveland

The Browns should have the No.2 pick, but they somehow flubbed that trade and now are in a tough spot. They need a lot of things, but a quarterback is paramount. Texas A&M’s Ryan Tannehill may be the best choice, but is he worth the risk?

5. Tampa Bay

Trent Richardson of Alabama has to go here for the Bucs, who are reportedly not happy with LaGarrette Blount at running back and Richardson is the next best thing. But if it isn’t Richardson, look for cornerback Mo Claiborne of LSU or receiver Justin Blackmon of Oklahoma State to boost Tampa Bay’s odds at sports betting sites.

Right now, the 2012 NBA trade deadline and March Madness are dominating the sports headlines, but NFL football is never far away in the minds of sports betting players and fans. If you had to make a pick right now, here is why you should lean towards Green Bay.

The Packers come in as +550 favorites and if they were a March Madness betting option, they would probably be Kentucky or Syracuse. They had a great season, but they looked like they ran out of gas near the end as they chased a perfect season and were handled easily by the eventual champion New York Giants. Losing at Lambeau Field like that has to bother Aaron Rodgers and company and they’re going to come out with a lot of fire next season.

The defense also played horrible and it’s even surprising that the Packers did as well as they did despite not being able to stop the pass, and that is going to change next season as well. Clay Matthews definitely took a step back, although he earned a lot of extra attention; he’ll have to figure out a way to get to the quarterback next season.

However, they seem to be one of the few teams who aren’t undergoing any major changes. New Orleans is a mess right now from the Drew Brees situation to “Bountygate”, and wherever Peyton Manning lands, that team is going to be a Super Bowl contender; it’s just a matter of where and there are going to be a lot of question marks on that team. The Packers may end up flying under the radar and that could end up benefitting you at betting sites.

While hockey fans are waiting for the NHL trade deadline 2012 to come and go, they probably also dabble in football betting as it’s the most popular form of sports wagering in North America and you can’t go a week without someone discussing either betting or fantasy possibilities in the NFL. But what happens when a team rests their players?

It can be a hassle to figure out a team’s chances in the preseason or in the late weeks of the regular season when playoff spots are wrapped up, and that is when a team’s depth (March Madness betting players will look at this as well) comes into play. Most fans know about a team’s first-string players, but what about the other players? If you study a team’s depth, that will help you make a more educated play.

One way you could look at this is to figure out the odds would be if the starters were in the lineup, and if there is a major discrepancy, that is likely a sign that you shouldn’t wager on the game. One of the most important aspects of being a good sports betting player is knowing when to walk away from a bet. Don’t just wager for the sake of, have an idea before you even start researching.

Preseason and late-season games can trick you if the stars are on the bench, so keep your eye on the news before heading to your favorite betting sites.

Even Toronto Maple Leafs fans may be thinking about the NFL season already (although it may get pushed by the wayside if the Maple Leafs make it to the playoffs). The Super Bowl means the end of the weekly betting that goes with the NFL football season, and one thing that can trip up some betting players is a team on a hot streak.

The tendency is to ride with a team until a hot streak is over, whether it is with outright picks or you’re betting against the spread, but most players that use price per head systems will tell you not to pay much attention to a streak. Taking each matchup individually is the best method to wagering on a weekly basis because each matchup is different and a streak is just that: a streak. No team has ever had a better record than 13-3 against the spread, so it is very difficult for a team to go 16-0 ATS; you see how difficult it is for a team to go 16-0.

Totals are a little easier to wager on when it comes to streaks because some teams may have injury problems with their best offensive players, but they have a good defense that keeps them in games. But it is still a tricky scenario when a team goes on a hot (or cold) streak because you never know when it’s going to end, so if you’re just starting out, try and stay away from those teams in your online sportsbooks.

Even if you’re a diehard MLB fan, you’ll probably find yourself dropping a couple bucks on the Super Bowl next weekend in Indianapolis, but you won’t be alone as it is the biggest single-day event in the wagering business. Here is a look at why the Super Bowl is so successful.

First and foremost, it’s the culmination of a long year that has been watched by many across the world, although North America is the most likely place you’ll hear Super Bowl betting discussed on a weekly basis. Chances are, if you’ve been watching and betting all season, you’re not going to pass up a chance to do it for the big game, especially as you’ve watched both teams all season and you think you know them pretty well. There is also a week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, which adds a week of preparation, as well as anticipation.

But also, the Super Bowl is usually an event that people that don’t like football will take part in for the food/drink/friends aspect of it, and there are a lot of prop bets that can (and will) be wagered on by people that haven’t watched a second of football all season long. Those people usually end up doing well as they treat it like a fun game, and with a healthy dash of beginner’s luck, they’ll be waiting for next year’s Super Bowl.

So have your friends over, fire up the oven/stove/grill/cooking device, open up that laptop and start making some Super Bowl prop and outcome bets now in your online sportsbook.

If you follow NFL scores, you may get into some fantasy football action, or you may decide to do some NFL betting at your favorite online wagering site. In-game betting is growing in popularity each and every day and there are a number of ways that you can make it work for you.

It all started with being able to bet on the winner of a football game, and then evolved into concepts like spread betting, game and player props, and other wagers to keep players that run sports bookie software busy during the gridiron season. But with in-game betting, you can wager on the spread or score of the second half of a game, or place a bet on whether a team can come back from a big deficit. These are basically ways to hedge or leverage your bets, which means you are covering yourself in the event that an original bet doesn’t go as you plan. For example, if you have bet on a team that has a big lead coming out for a second half, but you have a feeling that they may give the lead up (maybe an injury has knocked out their star running back), you can wager on the losing team to make a comeback and you can protect yourself in that manner.

In-game betting offers all sorts of possibilities, and it isn’t as difficult as you think. Fire up your favorite online wagering site now and get some practice because in-game betting can provide a real boost to your sports betting online experience.