You will hear plenty about ‘sports betting value’ as you venture into some sports action this NFL season, so learn about this and other basic ways to beat the point spread before the season starts. 

Who was the best team in the NFL last year? Why, the Tennessee Titans, of course.

No, the Titans weren't anywhere close to Super Bowl quality at 8-8. But when you factor in the pointspread, Tennessee was the winning pick 11 times. That's a handsome profit. The New York Jets matched that 11-5 record in 2006, only to get poleaxed 37-16 in the first round of the playoffs by the New England Patriots. That leaves Tennessee at the top of last year's heap.

The Titans? The Jets? If you're new to betting on the NFL, you might be hesitant to reach into your wallet and support either of those clubs. However, betting on the NFL isn't an exercise in picking the most talented team.

For those of you who are brand new to the point spread, here's the line for the 2006 season opener between New York and Tennessee:

Jets 35.5 -110
Titans -2.5 -110

The spread for this matchup is 2.5 points. For a bet on the favored Titans to cash in, they would have needed to win by at least a field goal (thus: Titans -2.5). Jets bettors would have been paid even if their team had lost by as many as two points. As it turned out, New York came out on top 23-16. The Jets won the game straight up, and they won against the spread.

Gambling in football is so commonplace that "the spread" is part of the sport's everyday language. You see it in the newspapers, on television and all over the Web. It's there because millions of people want to see it. But do they really understand it?

One of the first (and biggest) mistakes novice bettors make is when they assume that betting on the NFL is a battle of wits, with the sportsbook providing the opposition. This is simply not so. Using the above example, the bookie didn't decide the Titans were 2.5 points better than the Jets. The betting public did.

The point spread is a tool designed to balance the action (the amount of money wagered) between the two teams in a football game. The -110 refers to the amount of "juice" or "vigorish" the book charges to take your bet. In this typical case, you are paying $110 to win $100.

If the point spread does its job, 50 per cent of the action will be on the Jets and the other 50 percent on the Titans. That way, whichever team wins, the book pays the winners by taking $100 out of the pockets of the losing team's supporters. In return for its services, the book takes $10 from everyone. Look at that dynamic again. The winning bettor takes money from the losing bettor. Those are the people you are competing against, not the bookie.

The 35.5 you see above the point spread is the "total." Another popular NFL wager is whether the combined final score will be "over" or "under" the posted total.

Again, the total is set with the goal of dividing the action in half between the over and the under. This goal is rarely attained perfectly. The spread (and the total) will move from time to time before the game starts, in an ongoing attempt to balance out the action.

There are even occasions when the book itself will gamble, moving the line and getting more money on the side the book believes will lose. But the books tend to leave the gambling to the customers.

That's you, if you're game. Understand the pointspread before you start, and you already have an advantage over less-educated bettors. You'd be surprised how many there are.

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Good luck this NFL season.