How To Bet On The NHL

Check out our complete guide on how to bet on the NHL below. The NHL (National Hockey League) is America’s premier Ice Hockey league and attracts a huge amount of betting interest, particularly during the Stanley Cup. You can also use offshore sportsbooks to place your NHL wagers.

Are you ready to bet on the NHL? If that’s the case, then it’s essential to learn how to do it. You can start by reading this article to help you find the best NHL picks out there. Hockey is a sport of many different aspects. The best thing to do to become familiar with ice hockey is to learn about betting on NHL. It does not matter if you are a beginner or a successful bettor because there is always something to learn about betting on the NHL games.

Understanding NHL Odds

NHL betting is becoming more popular every year. People are beginning to realize that gambling in the NHL can be very profitable. The first thing to remember is that the odds are not always in your favor. If you have played hockey or followed the sport for a while, you probably have a general idea of what the odds are for each team. However, if you are new to the game, it would be helpful to know exactly what the odds are before placing your bets. An excellent way to get this information is by looking at any sportsbook website’s “odds” section.

You should also look at the lines on each team and their players’ stats. This will give you an idea of their type of team and how much they have improved over time. You can check out any of the significant sportsbooks for this information as well.

Another important aspect of betting on hockey is knowing how much to bet on each game. The amount that you place on each game depends on your personal preferences and how much you want to risk losing money on a particular team or player.

You can bet on the NHL in many different ways, but we’ll break them down into three main areas; futures bets, proposition bets, and live bets.

Futures bets deal with outcomes that will take place over a more extended period, for example, who will win the Stanley Cup or which team will take home the Presidents’ Trophy.

Proposition bets are focused on who will win a specific game or whether it will go into overtime.

Live bets are bets that you make after a game has begun. You can bet on things like how many goals will be scored in a given period or which team will score first.

Moneyline Bets

Moneyline bets are simply the most common bets you can make on a hockey game. The first thing to note is that there is no spread involved. This means that when betting on a moneyline, you are only concerned with which team will win and not by how much they will win.

In most cases, the favorite will be represented by a negative number, while a positive number will represent the underdog. For example, let’s say Tampa Bay Lightning is facing the Vegas Golden Knights. The moneyline might look something like this:

Lightning -160

Golden Knights +140

This means that for every $160 you bet on the Lightning, you would make $100 if they won. On the other hand, for every $100 you bet on the Golden Knights, you would make $140 if they won.

Totals Bets (Over/Under)

A totals bet, also known as an over/under bet, is a type of wager that asks you to predict whether the final score of a given game will be over or under the bookmaker’s prediction.

Let’s say the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues are playing each other, and the bookmaker believes the total number of goals scored in this game will be six.

You can then make a wager on whether there will be more than six goals or fewer than six goals in this game. If you believe more than six goals will be scored, you bet ‘over.’ If you think it’ll be less than six, you go with ‘under.’

This type of wager is helpful if you like to analyze statistics before making a bet. For example, if you know that a team has a high average number of shots per game but a low percentage success rate on their shots, you might decide to take the under on this game because they’re not likely to score many goals.

Understanding Different NHL Wagers

The National Hockey League has grown in popularity over the past few years, and today it is one of the most exciting games to bet on. With so many different options to choose from, you will want to make sure that you understand each individual wager before placing your bets. In this section, we’ll take a look at some common types of NHL wagers and what they mean for your bankroll.

Point Spread

A point spread is a popular way to bet on an NHL game. It’s simply a prediction about which team will win by more points than expected. For example, if there’s an average margin of victory between two teams at five points per game, then the point spread might be set at six points in favor of Team A (who has historically won by seven points more often than not) or 10 points against Team B (who usually loses by 12).

Puck Line

The puck line wager is a bit like a point spread. This is when hockey teams are given a handicap based on their odds of winning, which is then bet using the moneyline. The idea is that both teams will be more evenly matched so that either team can win.

This kind of wager can be an appealing option for those who want to put their money on the underdog and have them win, as well as for those who prefer betting on favorites when they’re facing a more manageable opponent, like a team with a lower win percentage.

The wager focuses on the number of goals scored in the game. This can be predicted more quickly because it’s easier to predict if a team will win by more than one, two, or three goals than an exact score.

This type of betting is slightly similar to point spread betting in American football and basketball, but there are some key differences:

  • The puck line only allows you to bet on margins of victory of one goal. It’s impossible to bet on half numbers as you can with point spreads such as “3.5 points”.
  • For a puck line wager to be valid, the game must go into overtime if necessary. If the game ends in a tie, your bet will be deemed void, and your stake will be returned to you.
  • Each NHL team has roughly 82 games per season, so there are plenty of opportunities to put this strategy into practice.

NHL Futures

NHL futures allows you to place a bet on the outcome of an individual game or the result of a future NHL season.

For example, you can place a bet on any given team to win the Stanley Cup in June, before the season has even begun! It’s been a big hit with hockey fans and bettors looking to speculate on teams before the season starts.

NHL futures are often placed months in advance of the cup and can be made on any game of the season at any time. Place an outright bet and follow your team throughout their journey to victory.

NHL Props Wagers

NHL props wagers are a type of betting game. In this game, you are given a set of prop bets that occur during the NHL matches. These events do not necessarily relate to the outcome of the game. For example, some bets will be made on whether a specific player scores a goal within the first five minutes of the game or whether there’s a fight within the first two minutes of the game. Once you make your bet, you must wait until the end of the game to see if you’ve won. You can make these bets during any period.

Season Win Totals Wager

In the NHL, wagering on ‘season win totals’ is available in most sportsbooks. A season win totals bet is a prop bet for how many games a team will win during the regular season. For example, if the Vegas Golden Knights are coming off of a great year and are expected to continue to do well, their ‘season win totals’ odds may look like this:

Vegas Golden Knights Season Win Totals

Over 48.5 Wins -120

Under 48.5 Wins +100

Betting $120 on Vegas to ‘win over 48.5 games’ would net you $100 if they end up winning 49 or more games during the regular season. And vice-versa, betting $100 on Vegas to ‘win under 48.5 games’ would net you $120 if they end up winning at most 48 games during the regular season.

Parlays

A parlay is a bet to combine multiple wagers and place them as one unit. If all the bets in your parlay win, you win the parlay. If even one of the wagers in your parlay loses, then your entire wager is lost.

For this reason, it’s essential to create a parlay with the best possible chances of winning. The more bets you have in a parlay, the higher the payout will be. However, it is much harder for a parlay with many selections to win than a two-selection parlay or a three-selection parlay. The payouts can seem very attractive, but there’s a reason they are so high: they are tricky to hit!

Parlays are especially popular during the Stanley Cup playoffs when fewer games are on which to bet. If you’re not sure which side or totals to take, then you can make a few selections and combine them into one bet.

1st, 2nd & 3rd Period Bets

1st-period bets are a series of lines you can bet on for the 1st period of any NHL game. 1st-period lines bets are similar to the current moneyline market but focus solely on the 1st period of each game. The market is based on a regulation time 20-minute period, not including overtime. 

All bets are settled on the result after 20 minutes of play. All bets will be void if the match is not completed. If a goal is scored in the last two minutes of play, two minutes of added time will be played. All bets will stand if a goal is scored during this added time. If no further goals are scored, then all bets will be void. 

A 2nd-period bet is a bet in which you’re predicting what will happen in the 2nd period of an NHL game. Bets are only settled at the end of the 2nd period, so if you place a 2nd-period wager, it won’t matter what happens in the 1st or 3rd periods for your bet to be settled. 

The exception to this is if a game goes into overtime or even a shootout, and the winning goal is scored during a sudden-death overtime period, bets will still be settled based on what happened during regular time. If a game ends in a tie after overtime, bets will be void and refunded. 

3rd-period bets are generally available for tied games or have a tie-in score at the end of the 2nd period. Regardless of the final score, you can choose which team will win the game or wager that the 3rd period will end in a tie. If you choose to bet on a team, they must win the game outright, regardless of whether they won overtime or shootout.

Conclusion

If you are looking to bet on the NHL, it is essential to make sure that you do some research to place your bet on the best NHL team. It is also essential to use a betting site where your money is safe and that gives you the proper betting lines for you to increase your chances of winning a bet. You should also know the odds and the different bets you can place on certain games. Playing with the right strategy will give you the result you are looking for.

We hope this article was helpful if you wanted to learn how to bet on NHL. The strategies are not necessarily difficult to master but you need to pick the right team with the best odds.