NFL betting splits data on VSiN lays out a map for success
It was about mid-season last year that I set out to study the college football betting splits data provided on VSiN.com by DraftKings. I felt that a book like DraftKings, known for servicing all levels of recreational bettors, providing this type of data would offer a ton of great betting opportunities if savvy bettors knew how to interpret the numbers. As it turns out, I was right, but by somewhat different means than I thought I would find. Majority bettors weren’t nearly as bad as I figured, and actually produced solid results when choosing to go against the grain. When they didn’t, most often it was a good opportunity to fade them. With 13 solid principles in place for navigating the 2023 CFB season, it was absolutely necessary that I take a closer look at what the NFL DraftKings Betting Splits data offered. You will see below in analyzing the overall results and the new systems I’ve come up with that I’m ecstatic that I did.
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You’ve probably seen the newsletters, promos, and VSiN show hosts, touting the Betting Splits Data from DraftKings, and rightfully so, as we believe it to be a fantastic resource for bettors. These are the pages on VSiN.com that we have built utilizing the data that DraftKings so graciously provides to us detailing the breakdowns of the money and ticket splits for point spreads, money lines, and totals.
Why is this Betting Splits information so valuable? Well, most specifically, it lets us see which games are the most publicly supported each week. We all truly believe that the “betting public” does not win over the long haul, and with the amount of money DK spends on acquiring customers, you have to assume that most of the bettors that play there would be considered “public”. In other words, the collective opinions of this group of recreational bettors are right out on display for all of us to analyze and take advantage of.
With more and more states becoming sports betting regulated each passing year, this information is more valuable than ever. In the “old days,” offshore sportsbooks would share this type of information, but bettors had no way of knowing the type or volume of clientele these groups were taking on. Let’s just say it made the betting percentage data these places offered convoluted. With the DraftKings data, we know their customer strength is in numbers, and that is exactly what we are looking for with this type of analysis.
Before digging into some of the system data, I was able to uncover during the 2022 NFL season, identically to college football, I should start you off with two common betting generalities for recreational players that wager at places like DraftKings. That is the majority bet favorites on point spread and Overs on totals. The numbers are staggering. According to the final ticket/HANDLE numbers last NFL season, majority wagers were on favorites in 217 of 284 games, or 76.4%, and on totals to go Over in 201 of 284, or 70.8% of games. These numbers are far more dramatic than the college football dichotomy, and a huge reason to why fading the majorities in the NFL was far more successful.
As a little background on this exercise, I basically tried to analyze the records of the “majority bettors” at DraftKings and the side/total they preferred for games. I also broke it down further sometimes by the percentage of majority, and by some various team statistics. There are two fields of analysis for each wagering option that DraftKings shares the data for both sides and totals: 1) HANDLE and 2) number of BETS. These can produce varied results, but in general, I would subscribe to the theory that the total handle is a little less “public” than the total number of bets.
These were the overall records of the majority bettors for the full 2022 NFL season in games, using the key terms HANDLE, number of BETS.
