Study Finds NFL Bettors Risk Less Money Than They Anticipate, Fewer Bet During Playoffs
With Sunday's AFC and NFC Championships just around the corner, bettors are planning their strategies to see how they will use their bankroll, with both games sending the winner to Super Bowl LX.
However, many bettors say they will bet on something prior to the game, but how many actually will put their money where their mouth is?
Tel Aviv-based marketing firm Optimove released its insights on this exact topic in a nine-page analysis this month entitled “Optimove Insight Analysis of NFL 2025-2026 Planned v. Actual NFL Wagering Intentions Through the Wild Card Round.”
Optimove, which works with iGaming and sports betting operators, tracked how NFL bettors actually wagered in the 2025–26 season compared to what they said they would do before kickoff.
Drawing on data collected from nearly 4 million bettors’ real activity through the end of the Wild Card round (Jan. 10-12) and a preseason survey of 425 NFL bettors, people are pretty honest about their general betting style during the season. However, they tend to be overly optimistic about how often they wager on preseason and postseason games, how many in-game wagers they place, and how much money they actually put down once games kick off.
Findings
The 18-week regular season, with each team playing 17 games, is where almost all the action happens. Before the season started, about 73% said the regular season would be their main betting time. In reality: 75% of all bets happened during this time frame.
Preseason and playoff wagers (especially the Wild Card Round) have a huge amount of excitement in advance, but many people didn’t jump in. During the preseason, 33% planned to wager, but only 10% actually did. For the Wild-Card Round, 50% said they would, but only 15% did. NFL Playoffs hopes and hype don’t turn into as many bets as people think, especially since fewer games are played compared to the regular season.
Live, or in-game, betting is also overhyped, according to the study’s results. Before the season, 31% said they planned to do live, in-game wagering. Only 17% followed through with that.
Pre-game bets, or wagers placed before kickoff, did well, usually between 48-50%. A decent number of bettors, 33%, mix both pre-game and live depending on the game, more than they admitted ahead of time. Bettors like to have the option of switching back and forth between pre-game and live.
The one wager most attractive to bettors is the parlay. According to the survey, about 72% said they were going to place a multi-leg wager, and 70% did.
Bettors love high-reward, multi-outcome tickets. The more they add, the bigger the payoff. With just three games remaining, expect more same-game parlays instead of spreading across games.
‘Our Eyes are Often Bigger Than Our Appetite’
People would like to bet as much as they can, until they look at their accounts. Bettors risk far less than they think they will. Bettors predicted more middle-to-big bets, which are considered to be wagers of at least $51. In reality, small bets dominated, with most wagers being no more than $10, and 37% of actual bets placed between $11–$50.
That did not necessarily surprise Jeff Laniado, Optimove’s director of sales, who spoke to Gambling Insider about the findings.
The gap between what NFL bettors said they would do and what they actually did reflects a basic human instinct: our eyes are often bigger than our appetite. Before the season starts, bettors imagine an ideal version of their behavior… betting live more often, taking higher stakes, leaning into the excitement. But once games are underway, real-world friction sets in. Time, risk tolerance, game flow, and emotional momentum all shape decisions, and behavior defaults to what feels familiar and manageable.”
Jeff Laniado, Director of Sales at Optimove
“What’s most surprising is how clearly this shows up in the playoffs. Before the season, nearly half of bettors (48%) said they expected to bet during the Wild Card round. In reality, only about 15% actually did. Even high-stakes moments that feel exciting in theory don’t automatically translate into action when the window is short and the context is real. In short, intent captures optimism; behavior reveals reality, which is why understanding bettors in the moment matters far more than relying on pre-season predictions.”
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