Should Cold Weather Affect Your NFL Betting Strategy?
You hear it all the time. When the weather gets cold, NFL teams have to be able to win low-scoring games with a good running attack and a defense that can make key stops.
With below-freezing temperatures expected Saturday in Denver, talking heads and NFL “experts” have already begun analyzing how the chilly weather will affect scoring and whether that gives an advantage to either team.
With this in mind, we turned to our Bet Labs software to see if the commonly accepted belief that cold weather causes lower scoring games is one we could use to find an edge.
To do the NFL over under betting cold weather analysis, we created a basic NFL system that included both regular season and postseason games.
We next added Bet Labs’ Temperature Filter to isolate only NFL games where the game-time temperature was 32 degrees or below.
Finally, we applied the Bet Type Filter to show us the record of all Over wagers on these games.
The table below displays the results for betting the Over in every NFL game with a game-time temperature of 32 degrees or below since the start of the 2005 season.
| Season Type | Record | Win % | Units Won | ROI |
| Regular | 58-40 | 59.2% | +15.75 | +16.1% |
| Postseason | 9-6 | 60.0% | +2.54 | +16.9% |
| Overall | 67-46 | 59.3% | +18.29 | +16.2% |
As you can see, when the weather gets cold, betting on NFL Overs heats up. Even more impressive is how similar the winning percentages are when comparing the regular season to the postseason, strengthening the reliability of the results.
What are your opinions regarding the effect of cold weather on NFL betting? Does temperature affect your personal betting systems? We invite you to leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
Al
01/10/2013 at 6:22 pmI have no opinion.
Mark
01/12/2013 at 9:48 amThanks for shattering one of the most destructive long term wagering myths- I have been “chasing” cold weather unders for 25 years, with a lot of wasted time, energy, and money. Now I can plug this leak and take value on the overs when the value is there( one exception) – I had under 46 on the famous “Mark Henderson snow plow game” in New England in the early 1980’s which ended up 3-0, when the TV came on there was so much snow on the screen you thought it was “white inteference ” or the like on TV- One fond memory- but thanks again for shattering that myth.
cashfarm
01/18/2013 at 2:12 pmIf you filter also games with wind over 20 mph across the long side of the field you will have a more consistent trend.. and this game have at now a forecast of 20 to 27 mph wind coming from west, exactly across the long side of the field. this game will stay under!
Best of luck
PJ
01/18/2013 at 2:24 pmThanks for the input. We’ll certainly keep an eye on the wind this weekend and see how it affects the Over/Under outcome.
cashfarm
01/18/2013 at 3:02 pmthe wind must be across the long side. if it blows from end zone to end zone it will have no effects in terms of profit on the total! Have a nice weekend
MarkP
01/09/2015 at 10:21 pmHow do you filter for wind direction in Bet Labs?
David Solar
01/10/2015 at 8:39 amAlthough we have the “wind direction” filter available for MLB betting systems, the only weather filters available for NFL betting systems are temperature, humidity and wind speed.