Legal New York Jets Betting
A perpetual Sunday second fiddle, the New York Jets – like their crosstown Giants rivals – are nevertheless one of the most storied franchises in all of football. People love them, and people love to hate them (as made evident in part by the sheer volume of legal New York Jets betting played across the country each week during the NFL season). Affectionately – and often appropriately – called Gang Green, the Jets have the distinction of being on the winning side of perhaps the biggest sports betting upset in modern history when some guy called Namath brashly guaranteed victory in Super Bowl III and then delivered. Conspiracy theories swirl to this day, and no NFL team has done more than the Jets to elevate New York sports betting in the eyes of the public and the government alike.
Of course, now’s as good a time as ever to get started betting on the Jets, and the pastime has the added benefit of being 100% legal. Even though various federal anti-gambling laws like the Wire Act, PASPA, and the UIGEA exist, these don’t actually ban your ability to participate in New York sports betting at all. In fact, these laws are all designed to solely go after those who accept wagers, not those who place them. In other words, if you want to bet on the Jets, it is illegal to use a local NY bookie, but it is perfectly legal to use an overseas, online sportsbook.
Being overseas, these sportsbooks – like SportsBetting, BetOnline, 5Dimes, etc. – are not subject to US legal jurisdiction, so you can legally place your Jets bets, and they can legally take them. Even better, legal online sportsbooks are easy to join: just sign up, deposit some money, and browse their boards. With little effort, you can be set up for legal New York Jets betting in time to cash in on their very next game.
While it’s a straightforward process, deposits and withdrawals at legal online sportsbooks still require a little bit of planning. Many bettors prefer to use more traditional deposit and withdrawal methods like checks, money orders, bank wire transfers, and the like. However, these each come with comparatively high fees and can take between one and two weeks to clear. If you need to deposit funds into your legal New York Jets betting account to wager ASAP, you’ll need to use a credit or debit card. (Note: Currently, legal NY sportsbooks only accept Visa and Mastercard. They do not take American Express at this time.)
Of course, you can’t withdraw to a credit or debit card, so that’s not the ideal method, either. If you want one single avenue for both quick deposits and immediate withdrawals (with no fees!), you’ll need to use Bitcoin. In addition to facilitating the fastest, least expensive New York sports betting transactions, Bitcoin has the advantage of being the most secure financial product on the entire Internet. It’s more tightly encrypted than your credit card, and it’s faster than any traditional paper method of money transfer. Even better, Bitcoin has the tendency to appreciate like crazy, so your legal New York Jets betting wins could earn you significantly more money once you put them on the various Bitcoin exchanges. Bitcoin could very well be your best Jets bet yet. Broadway Joe surely approves.
One thing you need to make sure you understand before placing your first New York Jets bet is the “moneyline.” The moneyline is the how all American sports betting is conveyed by sportsbooks, and it shows bettors how much a payout will be for a specific amount of action on a given bet. US moneylines are based on $100 as a point of reference, but any amount – depending upon your chosen sportsbook’s particular policies – can be wagered. Most legal New York sports betting sites will cap wager amounts at several hundred to several thousand dollars, with minimum bets often being as small as $0.25.
When reading the moneyline on any NY Jets bets, there will always be two outcomes to consider. One will be the favorite, which is shown with a negative number, indicating the amount that must be risked to win $100. The other will be the underdog, which will usually be alongside a positive number, showing the amount of money won on a $100 bet. Moneylines are almost always shown in parentheses beside their corresponding wagers. Also, it is crucial to keep in mind that moneyline “odds” are not probabilities of a given team to win or lose. Rather, they merely reflect the payout you’ll get for making a winning wager. The following legal New York Jets betting types will better explain how the moneyline ratio actually works.
The New York Jets point spread is probably the most common NFL wager that Jets fans will come across. When the news says the Jets are a “three-point favorite,” for example, they’re talking about the point spread. Spreads work by handicapping a given contest, making disparately talented sides more even by giving the supposed weaker team a “head start” in points. The stronger team will “give” points to the opposition, thereby allowing sportsbooks to even out the amount of money being wagered on both sides of the game. A Jets spread bet looks like this:
- New England Patriots -6 (-110)
- vs.
- New York Jets +6 (-110)
In this matchup, the Patriots are 6-point favorites, meaning that they “give” 6 points to the Jets. Thus, to win the bet, the Patriots have to win the game by at least 7 points. Conversely, the Jets “get” 6 points, meaning they can lose by as many as 5 points and still win the wager. If, however, the NY Jets lose by exactly two field goals, the result would be a “push,” prompting most legal New York sports betting sites to issue refunds on all the bet’s action.
Spreads are particularly useful for getting better payouts on favorites, but they can be riskier than simply picking a winner. If you’d rather just pick the Jets to win without employing a handicap, you can bet the Jets straight up. Straight bets are also called straight moneyline bets, because they’re only based on the moneyline to determine favorites, underdogs, and payouts. There are no other factors to consider.
- New York Jets (-165)
- vs.
- Buffalo Bills (+145)
Here, a $165 bet on the Jets would win $100, while a $100 wager on the Bills would earn $145. The Jets, as favorites, have a considerably smaller payout than the Bills, and it is this disparity in ROI that works to get bettors on both sides of a straight moneyline wager. The bigger the favorite, the smaller the payout, and vice versa.
The third most common legal New York Jets betting type is the over/under bet. Also called totals betting, over/unders are not concerned with which teams win or lose a given game. For over/under betting, a sportsbook will pick a number that represents the combined point total for both teams in a particular contest. If a sports gambler picks the “over,” he or she wins when the teams combine to score more points than the number posted by the sportsbook. If the teams combine for fewer points, the “under” wager wins. Here’s how a New York Jets over/under bet might look at your sportsbook:
- Miami Dolphins
- vs.
- New York Jets
- O/U 32.5 (-110)
If the final score of the above is 17-13, for example, the “under” wager would win, as 30 is less than 32.5. However, if the final score is 24-17, then the “over” bet would win, since 41 is greater than 32.5. Sportsbooks often use this half-point scoring format to prevent a wager from resulting in a push.
Player prop bets expand legal New York Jets betting options considerably, adding dozens of wagers to a given game’s gambling menu. As opposed to wins and losses, Jets player props are concerned only with individual single-game performances within a given contest, and they usually take the form of over/under or yes/no wager types.
If you check out the Jets prop lists at BetOnline et al., you’ll see that their player props allow New York sports betting enthusiasts to put action on things like how many touchdowns the quarterback will throw for, how many yards the running back might collect, whether or not the star linebacker will record a sack or interception, and so on. Different sportsbooks will have different player props, but the general format will remain the same across the board.
In addition to Jets player props, NY sports bettors can also enjoy wagering on several Jets team prop bets for most games. Like player props, team props are limited to single-game performances, except they’re all about team-based achievements instead of individual ones. New York Jets team props will include things like total touchdowns allowed by the defense, the number of yards of total offense racked up, how many first downs the Jets get, and the like. Again, different online sportsbooks will have different Jets team props to choose from.
As if all the above wasn’t enough, most online sportsbooks go even further to ensure that you get the best legal New York Jets betting experience. They do this by providing members a menu of Jets futures (i.e. their odds to win their division, their conference, or the upcoming Super Bowl), Jets parlay options, and a smattering of teasers, pleasers, alternate lines, and more. One sportsbook is even offering odds on Rex Ryan returning as the Jets head coach! (Just kidding. There aren’t enough pixels on your screen for a moneyline that big.)
Perhaps the most important legal New York Jets betting type going forward is the so-called live bet. Jets live betting, also referred to as in-game betting, is a new(ish) development that allows sports bettors to place wagers on specific, time-sensitive in-game outcomes. For example, a NY Jets live bet might ask fans to put action on whether the current drive will result in a touchdown, field goal, punt, or turnover.
In-game Jets bets can also be placed on a down-by-down basis, where folks can wager on things as basic as whether or not the upcoming play will be a pass or a run. Most top-end online sportsbooks offer full live betting menus, so if you’re going to partake, you’ll need to diligently follow every snap of the game to maximize your payout potential.
One of the best things about legal New York Jets betting is that, in this day and age, you can enjoy the pastime from pretty much anywhere. However, as popular as iPhones and Android phones are, there aren’t actually any legal New York Jets betting apps out there. However, that’s only because Apple and Google don’t allow real-money gambling apps on the App Store or in Google Play. Of course, as legal online sports betting was born of restriction and ingenuity, so too is the workaround here.
Instead of building apps that would require users to jailbreak or root their mobile devices, the best legal online sportsbooks have simply designed mobile versions of their desktop sites. These automatically load when you visit any sportsbook from your smartphone or tablet, and you can even save the bookmarks to your home screen to make a sort of “web app” experience. These aren’t quite as slick as proper NY Jets betting apps would be, but they do offer the same efficiency and convenience that you’re used to from dedicated app experiences.
There are literally hundreds of online sportsbooks that offer legal New York betting to both NY residents and people all across America. However, most of them are fly-by-night websites with unproven services, so you might feel intimidated by the prospect of actually finding a trustworthy one. Fortunately, you don’t have to be; just visit BetOnline, SportsBetting, and 5Dimes, search through their offerings, and pick one. Or pick all three. It only takes a New York minute to sign up, and by being a member at more than one book, you can shop around for the best Jets wagers for every single game.
Each of these sportsbooks has been operating since legal New York sports betting found its footing online, and they’ve all proven themselves to be worth your business. They’ve got strong data security standards, fair terms and conditions, and real-time updates across their entire betting boards. They also take a variety of payment options, making it easy for just about anyone to fill their free accounts and start betting on the Jets.