NFL Betting Changes 2025

NFL Week 1 is in the books!

I had a solid betting week overall (though being a Bears fan remains depressing) and noticed I’m betting a bit differently than I was last year.

Today I’ll highlight three key areas in which 2025 looks different than 2024 through a betting lens and make recommendations for how you can adapt to the new landscape most effectively.

As always, we’ll close with more NFL Bets of the week.

Let’s get after it.

1) Wong Teasers Remain Valuable as Pricing Erodes

Last year, I wrote about the mathematically favorable opportunity created by betting “Wong” teasers.

Here’s a quick summary:

An NFL teaser is a type of parlay bet where you adjust the point spread or total in your favor for each leg, typically by 6, 6.5, or 7 points.

For example, if a team is favored by 10 points, including them in a 6-point teaser would move the line down to make them a 4-point favorite.

In the case of a 2.5-point underdog, a teaser would move the line up to +8.5.

Like a traditional parlay, all legs in your teaser must cover the adjusted spreads for the bet to win.

Here’s the edge: because points in football are commonly scored in bunches of sevens and threes, the NFL produces a margin of victory that is not a balanced distribution, but instead clusters on key numbers (3, 7, 10, 14, etc.).

By only choosing teasers that cross the key numbers of 3, 6, and 7 (e.g., teasing +2.5 to +8.5 or teasing -7.5 to -1.5), these “Wong” teaser bets have a mathematical edge on the house when priced at -125 or better.

What’s new in 2025:

Last year, I bet all of my “Wong” teasers at DraftKings because they priced all teasers at -120. Sadly, they now price all teasers at -135, destroying the ability to bet with an edge.

Here’s an example:

The best book for teaser pricing in 2025 is Bet365 at -120, followed by Caesars at -125.

Don’t bet them anywhere else.

2) Exchanges Obliterate House Edge on TD Props

In my article about ladder betting last season, I gave the following advice:

Player props for touchdowns house edge is bad — between 8% and 20%. Avoid these.

In 2025, I’ll take that advice back, provided you have access to betting on an exchange or a prediction market.

What’s new in 2025:

With the rise of NoVig, Kalshi, and other such places to bet, pricing has dramatically improved in markets like “Anytime TD” or “First TD scorer”.

Want proof? Check out Juice Reel’s comparison of the best lines on Anytime TD Scorer’s tonight:

The top place to bet on Scary Terry or Deebo scoring is NoVig in both cases.

I shopped the best price on Jacory “Bill” Croskey-Merritt to score first tonight and Juice Reel showed me the following breakdown:

Fanatics offered the best price at +1400, but lines aren’t being pulled in from exchanges or Prediction markets.

A quick glance at Kalshi showed +1463 available immediately, with better pricing possible if a bettor is willing to put an order in the book and wait.

Exchanges and prediction markets offer two-way action on these bets, allowing you to bet “No” as well as “Yes”, and the pricing is good enough to include them in my consideration set each week.

If you want to sign up for Kalshi, click this link and use the code JUICE to get a free $10.

What a refreshing change!

3) Week 1 Became An Under Avalanche

Last year, Week 1 totals skewed Over, with 9 of 16 games topping the total.

This year, opening Sunday was a brick wall for totals: Unders crushed.

What’s new in 2025:

By late afternoon, the only main-slate Over was Steelers–Jets, and even after the fireworks on Sunday night (Ravens–Bills), books graded just two Overs out of 13 Sunday games.

Several games missed by double digits (e.g., Texans–Rams finished 20.5 points under), underscoring how conservative offenses + rust + new systems can suppress early scoring.

This betting trend is extreme enough that I’m willing to incorporate it into my decision-making, even presuming books will adjust.

In particular, lower totals make each teaser point more valuable, since each point makes up a larger share of the expected total.

Because of this, the Wong bets mentioned above are even stronger when the market is already estimating totals in the low-40s.

See below for an angle I like on this front.

Bet(s) of the Week $$

Last week we suffered a rough start to the NFL season (and some unfortunate luck), losing both our games.

We had two Eagles bets to defeat the Cowboys by 7 and 13 points, respectively.

Losing Jalen Carter before the first play, combined with stagnant offense after a rain delay, meant Philly only won by 4, leaving us out of the money.

In our second game, Michael Penix looked as good as I’d hoped, throwing for 298 yards. Disappointingly, though, the Falcons blew a three point lead with a minute left, and then missed a 44-yard field goal to send the game to OT — missing our cover by half a point.

We lost 2.5 units overall — meh.

Even so, luck will even out over time and since starting the newsletter, bets in this section are ahead 16.8 units, with a positive 18% ROI. We’ll update this regularly.

Based on my research, I am making the following bets this week:

• Tampa Bay Bucs +8.5 (teased from +2.5) & Indianapolis Colts +7.5 (teased from +1.5) @-120 on Bet365 for 1 unit

This is a “Wong” teaser in which both teams looked good in Week 1, and both games have totals in the low 40s. It’s a math play more than anything else, and I’d feel okay betting it at -125 on Caesars if you can’t access Bet365.

• Jacory Croskey-Merritt first TD tonight @+1900 (or at least +1400) on Kalshi for 0.1 unit

I anticipate the Commanders being competitive tonight, and “Bill” looked explosive enough last week that I think he’ll receive red-zone opportunities and I like this price.