The expanded College Football Playoff has fundamentally reshaped the postseason landscape, and sportsbooks are already reaping the benefits.
With the playoff field growing to 12 teams this year from four, the added games and heightened stakes have created a significant uptick in betting interest, futures action and dollars sportsbooks are handling.
“Moving from four teams and three games to [12 teams and 11 games] is huge,” said Johnny Avello, DraftKings’ director of sports operations. “You also have to consider the new window, which we believe is more favorable, as first-round games will shift from New Year’s Eve to the weekend of December 21-22.
“We are going to get marquee matchups featuring the biggest brands in college football throughout the playoff and expect these games to be very heavily bet.”
More important games to bet on
One factor driving more betting interest this postseason is that with more playoff games, fewer players are expected to opt out of their final postseason bowl games in favor of training for the NFL or entering the transfer portal.
“In the past few years, we saw so many teams decimated by opt-outs and the transfer portal during bowl season, leaving fans uninterested and disengaged with the games, even at the New Year’s Six level,” Avello said. “Now, with 11 playoff games, we’ll have plenty of marquee postseason games with teams playing at full strength, which should directly impact betting interest and handle.”
Conference championships see NFL-sized betting
This season’s changes also spiked betting interest in key postseason matchups that led up to the playoffs. With an automatic bid on the line for the five highest-rated conference champions, several conference title games saw significant increases in betting.
At ESPN Bet, the Texas-Georgia and Penn State-Oregon conference championship games drew a total handle comparable to an average NFL game.
“The expanded field and number of teams in contention for the playoff lends itself well to additional betting action on futures markets,” said a spokesperson from ESPN Bet. “Compared to previous years where there was a good idea of what top four teams had separated themselves from the pack, figuring out the top 12 teams — and their potential road to the national championship game — drove more debate, conversation, and betting activity.”
FanDuel noted that while home-field advantage in first-round playoff games is a new wrinkle, it hasn’t drastically altered the sportsbook’s approach.
“Home-field advantage creates an interesting twist we haven’t seen in the playoff before, but that will be accounted for in the first-round lines, and bettors understand that,” Avello said. “There are going to be high-profile matchups in every round, and they’ll all get plenty of interest from the bettors.”
More College Football Playoff futures
With more teams in contention for the CFP, sportsbooks are reporting increased activity particularly in futures markets.
“A team that might have been a long shot in the four-team format now has a much easier path to the College Football Playoff and national championship,” Avello said. “Teams like Indiana, SMU, and Boise State all come to mind. They would have had no shot in previous years, but this year, the door was wide open, and bettors recognize that.”
Some sportsbooks like ESPN Bet have introduced new types of futures markets related to the playoffs, “yes/no” for a certain team to make the CFP. With several surprises ahead of Sunday’s announcement, ESPN Bet said those markets saw plenty of activity through the weekend.
