The NFL 2024 Wild Card Round begins the postseason. Wild Card Round has the opening games of the NFL Playoffs which brings an opportunity to bet on NFL Playoffs games.
The winners of the wild card round advance to the divisional round.
We provide the latest wild card odds and lines from the best online NFL sportsbooks. Our updated wild card betting trends help bettors make an informed decision.
Betting on The Wild Card Round with a sportsbook that has your back is a great way to cash in on NFL Playoff action.
In NFL wildcard playoff games following the 2000 to 2020 seasons, home teams went 47-39 straight up (SU) and 41-44-1 against the spread (ATS)…
The single biggest innovation the National Football League has added to American sports: “Wild-card” playoff games, so called as to introduce an element of surprise or randomness to what is probably already the most exciting playoff tournament in sports. Better yet, betting on NFL wildcard playoff games can prove extremely lucrative – perhaps even more so with the introduction of a 7th such postseason entry in each conference for 2021 and beyond…
The wildcard rounds in the NFL playoffs are often touted as wildly unpredictable and a real showcase for Cinderella teams – but the clever NFL bettor would be well advised to do as the old cliché says and “throw out those regular-season records” when entering the first round of these playoffs with wildcard games.
In actuality, wildcard round games are particularly predictable and the bettor looking to turn a profit should take note. To wit: In AFC wildcard games following the 1980 through 2021 seasons, the home team went a truly outstanding 50-29 SU and 45-34 ATS. Even more incredibly, the Baltimore Ravens are quite the outlier in these games as well with a mark of 6-0 SU/ATS as a road team in the wildcard round.
Home teams in NFC wildcard games have done marginally worse at 45-34 SU/39-38-2 ATS, though is the traditionally hapless Detroit Lions are removed from the equation, NFC wildcard homers fall to 37-34 SU/33-36-2 ATS.
Why do home sides retain an advantage while in most other weeks of the regular season homefield advantage is disappearing? At least a couple factors are important: Firstly, the disparity between a no. 2 or 3 and a no. 6 or 7 seed is certainly quite wide by the 18th week of a typical football season, perhaps even greater than in a randomly-chosen matchup in the regular season. Secondly, by December/January, homefield advantage may resurface in the form of extreme weather conditions: Bettors should definitely beware dome teams in nearly any meteorological conditions come the wildcard round…
The NFL wildcard round is the first week of play in the league’s season-ending playoff tournament. For decades this was popularized as “Wild Card Weekend” and still is, though since following the 2021, a Monday Night Football wildcard game has been added to the postseason schedule.
After each of the top finishers in the NFL’s eight divisions is determined, the three teams in each conference with the best win-loss record that season will be named wildcard teams and placed in a tournament bracket as seeds no. 5, 6 and 7.
Since the NFL has (relatively) few games at 17 per season, many wildcard teams and games are decided based on tiebreakers, which in turn are based on performance other than straight-up wins and losses. The first on the list of tiebreakers include head-to-head records of the teams in question, winning percentage within conference games and winning percentage among common opponents (if at least four games played). The list continues on through seven more tiebreakers before a coin flip would be resorted to.
In the history of the Super Bowl, just 12 wildcard teams have advanced through the conference championship game and into the final. The first wildcard team to get to the Super Bowl was the 1975 Dallas Cowboys and this was mostly recently done by the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals.
Of the 12 teams to go from wildcard round to Super Bowl, seven won the Lombardi, firstly by the 1980 Oakland Raiders and most recently to date by the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Non-division winning “wild card” teams have been part of the NFL playoffs nearly since divisions were introduced. However, it took expansion of the playoffs from four teams per conference to five per; the first season this was implemented – 1980 – the wildcard Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 27-10 in Super Bowl XV.
The winner of NFL wildcard round games since 1980 has, historically speaking, an 11 in 79 chance (just over 13.9%) of appearing in the Super Bowl and a 7 in 79 chance (about 8.9%) of winning. This implies that, if believe a wildcard team will win either the conference championship game or the Super Bowl, you’re getting good value at minimums of +620 or +1025, respectively
Betting on NFL wildcard round games may seem daunting, as sports media tends to hype up the possibility of upsets and play up the stories of underdogs. But the reality is that picking winners to bet on in the NFL’s wildcard games is easier than you’d expect. NFLbets.com assists the NFL bettor with tips, tricks, predictions and analysis of trends to help you wager successfully on wildcard round playoff games.
Visit our sportsbook partners for latest odds, betting options and bonuses
