Best College Football Betting Apps: September 2023
BetMGM Sportsbook is our choice for the best college football betting site—and here's why.
BetMGM is not just another betting app; it's the pinnacle of mobile betting platforms, especially for college football enthusiasts. What sets it apart? The sophisticated yet user-friendly design ensures that even newcomers can navigate with ease. The app offers cutting-edge features, from live game streaming to real-time odds updates, ensuring that users are always in the loop and able to make informed decisions.
Moreover, BetMGM offers an unparalleled range of betting options for NCAAF games. Whether you're looking to place a bet on the underdog or predict the total points, there's something for every kind of bettor. The layout is meticulously organized, ensuring that markets are not just accessible but also presented in a way that's easy to understand.
For those based in Kentucky, there's an added incentive. The Kentucky BetMGM bonus code BETKYCOM unlocks $100 in Bonus Bets when you pre-register for a Kentucky BetMGM account between now and Sept. 28.
Other great choices include Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings, FanDuel, and bet365, all of which are rolling out some of the best sportsbook promos in Kentucky.
Choosing An NCAA Football Betting App
The best sportsbooks offer dozens of college football betting options for the biggest games, and a variety of options for the smaller ones. Bettors will want to choose a sportsbook that offers competitive odds, terrific college football bonuses and potential promotions, since those will help boost your chances of winnings. The top college football betting apps also have an simple user interface, and the ability to easily deposit and withdraw money. Finally, they should have good customer service representation in case bettors ever have any questions.
Features to Look for in an NCAA Football Betting App
- ⭐️ Live Streaming: Nothing beats the excitement of watching a game live. Some top-tier apps offer live streaming services, allowing you to watch the game and bet simultaneously.
- ⭐️ Diverse Betting Options: From moneyline bets to over/under and point spreads, a good app will offer a plethora of betting options, catering to both novices and professionals.
- ⭐️ Expert Analysis and Tips: For those who need a little guidance, some apps provide expert analysis, predictions, and betting tips, giving you an edge in the betting arena.
- ⭐️ User Reviews and Ratings: Always check user reviews and ratings. They provide a glimpse into the app's performance, reliability, and user satisfaction.
Types of College Football Bets Offered
The best college football sportsbooks offer a wide variety of options on a single game. Bettors can find the standard point spread, moneyline and total wagers, but sportsbooks go much deeper. They offer alternative spreads and totals, individual game props, betting on individual quarters and halves, the ability to create same-game parlays and the ability to live wager during a game.
Seamless User Experience
The best NCAA football betting apps are designed with the user in mind. With intuitive interfaces, quick loading times, and easy navigation, placing a bet has never been easier. Whether you're a seasoned bettor or a newbie, these apps cater to all.
Real-Time Updates
Saturdays during the college football season can be hectic. With so many games going on at once, make sure you can stay updated with live scores, player statistics, and game analysis. With real-time notifications, you're always in the loop, ensuring you make informed betting decisions.
Secure Transactions
Safety is paramount. Make sure you consider choosing a betting app that uses advanced encryption technologies, ensuring your personal and financial details remain secure.
Learn More: Legal Kentucky Sports Betting Apps
How To Bet On College Football Online
Dive into the dynamic realm of college football betting. We will break down key concepts like odds, moneylines, spreads, futures, and parlays, ensuring you're well-equipped to place informed wagers on NCAAF this season.
How do College Football Odds Work?
College football odds are usually displayed in the standard American format, which begins with either a plus or minus sign. A plus sign indicates the amount of money you would profit from a $100 wager, while a minus sign indicates how much money you'd need to wager to win $100.
As an example, say DraftKings Sportsbook was offering Georgia as a -450 favorite and TCU as a +350 underdog to win the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship game. A bettor would need to wager $450 on Georgia in order to profit $100, if the Bulldogs were victorious. Conversely, a bettor would profit $350 if he/she wagered on TCU to win and the Horned Frogs pulled off the upset. You don't need to wager $100 when betting on a game, it just serves as an easy comparison point.
In this example, Georgia easily won the game 65-7, so a bet on Georgia to win would've won, and any TCU bet would've lost.
Odds for college football games will change in the lead-up to the game based on a variety of factors, including which team more bettors are wagering on and public perception of a team. Bettors may find a team at 20-1 odds to win the College Football Playoff at the start of the season, and those odds may drop to 10-1 a few weeks later based on a winning streak, or fall to 40-1 based on a significant injury.
College Football Moneyline Betting
A moneyline bet is a simple wager on which college football team you think will win a game. Any team with a plus sign next to its odds is an underdog in that game; any team with a minus sign next to its odds is a favorite. The odds tell bettors the profit they would earn if either team won, and also demonstrate the implied probability the bet will win.
Since it's more likely that a favorite will win on the moneyline, bettors have to wager more money to profit the same amount as they'd make betting less on an underdog.
College Football Spread Betting
The spread is the most common way that bettors wager on college football games. Sportsbooks give the moneyline favorite a points handicap, or an amount of points they have to win the game by. With a spread wager, it's not enough for a favorite to simply win the game (like a moneyline wager), the team also needs to win by a certain amount to cover the spread.
For example, Georgia was a 13-point favorite in the 2022 College Football National Championship Game against TCU. Bettors could either wager on Georgia -13 or TCU +13. If you bet on Georgia, the Bulldogs needed to win the game, and be victorious by at least 14 points. If you bet on TCU, the Horned Frogs could lose by 12 points or fewer, or have won the game. Georgia won 65-7, so the Bulldogs easily covered the big spread.
College Football Over/Under Betting
Betting on the over/under is a popular way to bet on college football games. The sportsbooks will set a line of the combined points for both teams and bettors can wager on whether the two teams will go over or under that amount. For example, the total for a Georgia-Alabama game may be 53.5. If the final score was Georgia 27, Alabama 24, the game would have stayed under the total.
College Football Parlay Betting
College football parlay wagers allow bettors to combine multiple predictions into a single bet. Parlays are riskier because every leg of your parlay needs to win in order for bettors to win their bet; if one bet loses (even if every other leg of your parlay wins), you lose the parlay wager.
For example, let's say you're looking at the following parlay:
- ✅ Alabama to cover the spread against Tennessee at -110 odds.
- ✅ UCLA to cover the spread against Washington at -110 odds.
- ✅ There will be fewer than 57 points in the Georgia-Kentucky game at -110 odds.
If you wagered $10 individually on each of those bets, you would profit $9.09 on each one. So, your three bets would lead to a profit of $27.27. However, if you put all three wagers together into a three-leg parlay, you would profit $178.75. Parlay wagers are so appealing because of this potential profit, but they are much riskier, because if one leg loses, the entire parlay loses (no matter how many other legs win).
College Football Futures
College football futures wagers are long-term bets that aren't determined by the outcome of a single game (until the final championship game relevant to that wager). For example, odds to win the 2023 College Football National Championship Game have been out since this January. College football betting sites will release odds for notable Division I teams, and the odds will move every week throughout the season based on other bets, team performance and more.
Learn More: FanDuel Kentucky Promo Codes
Popular NCAA Football Events & Awards To Bet On
There are a wide variety of opportunities for college football wagers, including bets on the winner of the College Football National Championship and teams to make the College Football Playoff. Bettors can wager on individual awards as well, like the Heisman trophy.
Heisman Trophy Winner
The Heisman trophy is the most prestigious award in college football and awarded every December to the best player that season. The winner of the 2022 Heisman trophy was Southern California quarterback Caleb Williams of USC. Bettors are able to wager on the winner throughout the season. Williams is the preseason favorite to win the Heisman again this season at sportsbooks.
College Football National Championship
The College Football National Championship will be played on Jan. 8, 2024 at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. The two winners of the College Football Playoff semifinal games will face off to determine this season's champion. The Ohio State Buckeyes won the first CFP National Championship in 2015, beating Oregon 42-20.
Bettors can make wagers on the team to win the College Football National Championship, as well as the teams to make the CFP title game
College Football Playoffs
The College Football Playoffs consist of the four best teams in the sport each season, which then play in two national semifinals at rotating neutral venues. The winners of the semifinals face off in the College Football National Championship, which will be played on Jan. 8, 2024 at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
Bettors can wager on the college football teams that will make the CFP, along with parlaying two teams to make the CFP for bettor odds (i.e. DraftKings Sportsbook KY has set +800 odds on if both Alabama and Clemson will make the 2023-24 College Football Playoff. Both teams would need to make the CFP for bettors to win that wager.)
Conference Winners
Bettors are able to wager on which teams they believe will win every Power 5 conference. The Georgia Bulldogs are favored to win the College Football Playoff again this season, and they are also -115 favorites to win the SEC at DraftKings. In the Pac-12, the USC Trojans (+190) are favored over the Oregon Ducks (+300) and Washington Huskies (+320).
The Texas Longhorns (+100) with QB Quinn Ewers are favorites in the Big 12, while the Ohio State Buckeyes (+170) and Michigan Wolverines (+175) are essentially co-favorites to win the Big Ten. Finally, oddsmakers expect the Clemon Tigers (+145) and Florida State Seminoles (+150) to be battling for the top spot in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Learn More: Caesars Kentucky Sportsbook Promo Codes
Is it Legal to Bet on College Football Online?
Yes, is it legal to wager on college football games online in a variety of U.S. states. Up until 2018, Nevada was the only state that offered college football betting, but that changed when the Supreme Court repealed PASPA on May 14, 2018, giving individual states the right to offer and regulate sports betting. The exponential growth of college football betting has led to more overall wagering in the states that offer sports betting, and allowed some sportsbooks to partner with college football teams.
College Football Betting in Kentucky
Governor Andy Beshear signed the Kentucky sports betting bill into law on March 31 this year, and sports betting was officially made legal on June 28 when the bill (HB551) went into effect. Bettors will able to place wagers on Sept. 7 at retail locations and the online launch in Kentucky is scheduled for Sept. 28. Make sure to check the latest odds on Kentucky Wildcats football and Louisville Cardinals football before you make your wagers!
Get Started Betting On College Football
With more options to choose from emerging on a regular basis, your best bet will be to sign up with multiple sportsbooks to take advantage of college football betting promotions and decide which app works best for you. Signing up with multiple college football betting sites will also allow you to "line shop" to find an edge and get the best odds available for your wagers.
This article will be updated every week of the college football season so stick with BetKentucky this year to stay up to date on the latest college football betting promos to take advantage of!
Best College Football Betting Apps FAQ
The best college football betting apps are BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings, FanDuel, and bet365. Each betting site has its pros and cons but overall BetMGM sportsbook is the best app to place college football wagers.
College football online betting will be available in the state of Kentucky on Sept. 28. Caesars, DraftKings and BetMGM, FanDuel, and bet365 along with other sportsbooks, will be live on that date. ESPN BET will likely go live later this fall. We're not sure when Circa Sports or Fanatics Sportsbook could go live in KY.
The most popular college football bets are moneyline, spread and total bets. A moneyline wager is simply on a team to win the game. A spread bet is on a favorite or underdog to win by a certain amount. A total wager is betting over/under the combined points of both teams.
A moneyline bet on NCAAF college football odds is simply a wager on which of the two teams will win the game outright. The favorite will be presented with minus (-) odds while the underdog will be shown with plus (+) odds.
A point-spread college football bet gives a points handicap to the team oddmakers deem to be better. A favorite needs to win by more than that amount to cover the spread, while the underdog needs to only not lose by more than that amount.
An over/under (or totals) NCAAF college football bet is a wager on the whether the total number of combined points both teams will score in the game will go over or under a set amount. The sportsbook will set the total amount on their site or app.
A parlay college football bet is a wager that combines two (or more) individual bets, and every bet in the parlay must win in order for bettors to win the parlay. Parlays are riskier wagers, but also have higher payouts as a result.
College football futures bets are wagers on future events and can be determined days, weeks or months in the future. For example, you can bet on many teams to win the College Football Playoff today, but the bet won't be decided until Jan. 2024.
Author
Shannon Lane is a commercial editor for Gambling.com Group overseeing BetKentucky.com. She's spent the last decade working in sports media, including at NFL Media in digital content programming and strategy, and as a reporter and fact-checker at Sports Illustrated. She graduated from Northwestern University with a concentration in journalism where she covered football, lacrosse, basketball and volleyball.
