The 2024 NFL season was massive for the sports betting industry, with an estimated $35 billion on the line and $1.4 billion for the Super Bowl alone.
It was also a massive season for favorites and the betting public, which largely backed the favored side all year: Favorites went 195-77 outright in the 2024 regular season, their best record since 2005. Favorites had a specifically great run in December, which gave bettors a rare win for the penultimate month of the season.
Some teams and players attracted more fervor and delivered for bettors more often than others, so let’s take a look at which ones were the biggest cogs in the 2024 NFL betting machine.
Based on data from BetMGM, Caesars, DraftKings, ESPN BET, and FanDuel.
On heavy rotation: The teams the public couldn’t get enough of
Detroit Lions
There was considerable hype around the Lions coming into the 2024 campaign: At +1000, Detroit wasn’t the favorites to win Super Bowl LIX but was still one of the most popular wagers among the betting public in that future market.
That excitement continued in the regular season, where Dan Campbell’s squad was easily the consensus most-bet team on a game-to-game basis across the major sportsbooks, both by tickets and handle. They were also involved in two of the most-bet games of the season (Week 14 vs. the Green Bay Packers and Week 18 vs. the Minnesota Vikings).
With the public backing them at seemingly every turn, the Lions largely delivered: At 12-5 (.706), they had the second-best record against the spread in the NFL and maintained the highest average cover margin in the league (7.71), which was bolstered by their Week 6 dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys as 3.5-point favorites. The Lions’ 34.5-point cover margin was the largest in any NFL game all season.
Detroit games had a pretty pedestrian 9-8 record to the over, but those contests also featured the highest average pregame total in the league at 50.62 (the Baltimore Ravens were next at 47.32, followed by the Cincinnati Bengals at 47.03).
Kansas City Chiefs
While the Chiefs fell short of completing the first-ever Super Bowl three-peat, Kansas City’s dominance from previous years kept them a very popular play among bettors in the 2024 regular season, which they entered as the preseason championship favorites (+500) and with a large portion of public bets.
Andy Reid’s team was a consensus top-three most-bet team throughout the course of the season, with ESPN BET and DraftKings both placing them behind only Detroit for handle on a game-to-game basis. This was even as Kansas City struggled to a 7-10 (.412) ATS record behind an uncharacteristically shaky offense that resulted in Chiefs games going 7-10 to the under.
Nevertheless, the Chiefs over-unders were some of the most-bet all season according to ESPN BET. KC’s opening game against the Ravens also withstood the rigors of an entire regular season to be the most-bet game of the 2024 campaign.
Baltimore Ravens
Speaking of Baltimore, the Ravens were also a consensus top-five most-bet team throughout the 2024 regular season.
The electrifying offense, led by Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry, enticed bettors throughout the campaign, and Baltimore rewarded them with a solid 10-7 ATS record, with their one underdog loss against the number coming in that Week 1 game against Kansas City.
That offense also led the Ravens to have overs go 13-4 (.765) in their games, tied with the Carolina Panthers for the best over record in the league despite the large average totals they would attract.
Deep cuts: The teams that made a mark against the spread
These teams weren’t popular among bettors in 2024 but they were significant in the betting markets… for better or worse.
Los Angeles Chargers
The best ATS record of the 2024 NFL regular season went to the Chargers, who racked up 13 wins against the number, tied with 12 other teams for the most all-time, though their cover percentage (.765) wasn’t close to the all-time record of .929 set by the 2004 San Diego Chargers. LA is the third team to go 13-4 ATS since the NFL moved to a 17-game schedule in 2021.
Although the Chargers weren’t an overly well-bet team, DraftKings did rank them fifth on its list of top moneymakers for bettors over the course of the regular season.
Denver Broncos
Bookmakers came into the season with extremely low expectations for the Broncos: At +750, they had the second-longest odds to make the playoffs ahead of only the New England Patriots.
It came as a surprise to most when Sean Payton’s team punched its ticket to the postseason, becoming the biggest longshot to make the playoffs since the 2011 Bengals. What’s even more unexpected is the way they did it.
Denver was the only team in the NFL to go undefeated ATS as a favorite during the 2024 campaign, posting a perfect 8-0 record that goes down as the best in the Super Bowl era. The Broncos notched the best favorite average cover margin (14.25, with the Lions second at 7.97) and won their playoff-clinching game against the Chiefs 38-0 as 11.5-point favorites, but that wasn’t even their largest favorite cover margin of the year as they defeated the Falcons in Week 11, 38-6, as 1.5-point favorites.
Tennessee Titans
From the highest of highs, to the lowest of lows.
Not only were the Tennessee Titans the worst ATS team of the 2024 season, but at 2-15 (.118), they were the worst ATS team in a season of the Super Bowl era; the previous record was held by the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who went 2-10-2 (.167) ATS in their first season as an NFL expansion team.
The 2024 Titans didn’t cover any games as a favorite (0-6) and had the second-worst average cover margin (-5.56) ahead of only the Cleveland Browns (-6.18). At least Tennessee gets the number one pick in the draft.
The hit makers who set the vibe for the season
Derrick Henry
“King Henry” lived up to his nickname for bettors, as he was the consensus most-bet player during the 2024 regular season. Henry led the way for bets and handle in the anytime touchdown scorer markets (which are easily the most-bet player props on a weekly basis) though BetMGM also reported him as its most popular player in non-TD prop markets as well.
DraftKings lists Henry third on its player moneymaker rankings.
Lamar Jackson
Jackson, Henry’s teammate, was another immensely popular pick among bettors this season as he topped multiple sportsbooks’ lists for the most-bet player in non-TD props. The 28-year-old was also a very popular selection in the MVP futures markets, though he ultimately lost out on the award to Bills QB Josh Allen.
Saquon Barkley
One of the driving forces behind the Philadelphia Eagles’ run to a Super Bowl title, Barkley was a regular feature for bettors in both TD and non-TD player prop markets at many sportsbooks.
At ESPN BET, he is the first running back to appear among the most popular non-TD scorers despite the fact that he was facing rushing yard props well over 100 yards by season’s end; he led all running backs with an average rushing yards over-under of 88.3, with Henry right behind him at 83.6.
The crowd went wild: Bettors were obsessed with Super Bowl LIX
Barkley’s dominance was supposed to continue into the biggest game of the season in the mind of sports bettors: At ESPN BET, about 20% of all Super Bowl player prop wagers were on Barkley, more than Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce combined.
Alas, Barkley had a relatively mediocre game in New Orleans, failing to reach his rushing yards prop mark and not even finding the endzone, a huge boon for sportsbooks from a props perspective, including for those in Nevada, who ultimately netted a record $22.1 million on the Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, bettors in Pennsylvania made out like bandits betting on their hometown Eagles, as the state’s sportsbooks lost $6.5 million on Super Bowl LIX. ESPN BET said that 73% of wagers in the state were on Philly, compared to less than 50% nationwide.
The standout bets of the year
There was a vibe around the Eagles this season that made people want to bet huge money on or against them:
In early December, a Kentucky bettor at Circa Sports placed a $3.1 million bet on the Eagles moneyline (-700) to beat the Panthers, believed to be one of the largest bets in NFL regular season history. Philly won the game on a dropped pass from Carolina receiver Xavier Legette.
Just weeks before that, a bettor at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas placed a $1 million wager on the Los Angeles Rams to cover a three-point underdog spread against the Eagles; L.A. lost the game 37-20.
A bettor at BetMGM wagered $800,000 on the Eagles moneyline for Super Bowl LIX; DraftKings reported a $500,000 bet backing Philly in the Big Game.
Many bettors also created their own luck with parlays that allowed them to turn a little cash into a lot:
DraftKings had a bettor wager $0.50 at +15,989,900 odds for a season-long stats parlay. It cashed for $79,950.
ESPN BET took two massive parlays on the final day of the regular that both cashed:
A bettor wagered $5 at +214,164 odds to win $10,708.21
The book’s largest bet on main lines only produced a +20,481 play.
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