for early access to the latest igaming videos!
and get the latest igaming news first!
Optimove, the creator of Positionless Marketing and a leading player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators, has released a new Optimove Insights analysis tracking how NFL bettors actually wagered in the 2025–2026 season compared to what they said they would do before kickoff.
Drawing on data from 3,991,737 bettors’ real activity through the end of the Wild Card round and a pre-season survey of 425 NFL bettors, the report finds that while intentions broadly match reality in terms of how people prefer to bet, they consistently overestimate how often, how live, and how much they will wager once the season is underway. The study points to the regular season as the backbone of NFL betting, highlights a clear overstatement of live betting and playoff engagement, and shows that frequent low-stake bets dominate actual behavior despite higher-stakes expectations voiced in advance.
Regular Season Anchors Betting, Playoff Excitement Lags Behind
The comparison between planned and actual betting periods shows the regular season firmly at the center of NFL wagering. Before the season began, 73% of survey respondents pointed to the regular season as their main betting window, a forecast that was almost perfectly mirrored by real behavior, with 75% of all observed bets taking place during that stretch. In contrast, the pre-season and Wild Card wagers seemed more attractive in theory than they actually turned out to be. In the survey, 33% of gamblers reported that they would likely place bets during the pre-season, but what the analysis shows is that only around 10% of gamblers actually did so during the benchmark period, and this indicates that the notion of betting on pre-season games tends to lose steam once the more serious games begin.
The Wild Card game presents an even more extreme contrast, as nearly half (48%) of the respondents expected to become involved at this level, but only around 15% of gamblers actually participated, and this indicates that the ‘high-stakes’ atmosphere of the early playoff games does not necessarily carry over into widespread betting activity when the number of days and games is limited. In terms of the Divisional Round, Conference Championships, and Super Bowl, the report expects that there will be a concentration effect, with fewer days and games but more attention that often carries over into more bets per game, larger average wagers, and more live-betting mixes among those who do stay engaged.
Live Betting Interest Outpaces Actual Use
Turning from timing to betting styles, there is a clear shift from pre-game betting to mixed styles, with a substantial difference between betting plans and realities.
Pre-game betting continues to be more of a steady norm; 48% of the survey group tends toward this betting style, and actual figures tend even more toward 50% for a pre-game betting style, which is more of a favorite among NFL football bettors.
Before the season, 31% said live betting would be their priority, yet only 17% actually behaved this way, indicating that live betting is more hyped and less delivered. A different picture shows up when behavior doesn’t match what people say. Though few admit it, movement across sports and live betting happens more often than answers suggest. Just 21% claim no clear favorite, choosing both equally. Yet actual actions reveal that 33% engage this way, as shifts happen depending on how games unfold. As the season progresses into later playoff rounds that tend to be “appointment viewing,” the study expects live engagement to deepen even if the share of purely live-only bettors remains modest.
Parlays Closely Match Pre-Season Expectations
In contrast to other areas, bet structure shows strong alignment between what bettors said and what they actually did. The analysis compares single bets and multi-leg parlays and finds that multi-bets dominate both in stated preference and actual behavior, confirming the sustained appetite for higher-engagement, multi-outcome tickets.
According to the survey, 72% of bettors planned to primarily place multi-bets, and actual activity lands almost identically at 70%, while single bets only rose slightly from 28% in pre-season responses to 30% in observed behavior.
With the playoff schedule reducing and the number of available games to bet on becomes limited, traditional multi-game parlays will become more difficult to construct. This is expected to drive bettors towards same-game parlays, which will enable them to stack multiple outcomes of the same game and still have the multi-leg experience.
Stakes Trend Lower Than Bettors Anticipated
The clearest mismatch between intent and reality appears in stake size, where bettors consistently overestimated how much they would wager. When comparing survey responses to actual bet amounts through the Wild Card round, the data shows that small wagers placed frequently are far more common than bettors’ pre-season expectations implied.
Low-stake bands of 1–5 dollars and 6–10 dollars account for 26% and 19% of actual bets, respectively, compared to only 8% and 9% in the survey, revealing that real-world wagering habits lean much more heavily toward “small but often.” Mid-to-higher stakes, meanwhile, are significantly overstated in the survey. The 51–100 dollar range was cited by 29% of respondents as their typical stake size, yet only 6% of actual bets land there, and a similar pattern emerges for the 101–499 dollar band, which drops from 19% in intent to just 4% in practice. Both data sources agree that 11–50 dollars is the most common stake level, but the observed share of 37%, compared to 31% in the survey, reinforces this as the true default for most bettors. The report notes that as the playoffs continue, casual participants may enter around marquee events like the Super Bowl, potentially lowering average stakes among newly active or one-off bettors, while more committed players may choose to keep stakes conservative and instead express confidence by adding more legs to parlays rather than pushing up single-ticket amounts.
Turning Dynamic Bettor Behavior Into Real-Time Action
Beyond the numbers, Optimove’s analysis emphasizes that the gap between planned intent and real betting behavior highlights how situational and dynamic player preferences really are. Bettors shift when they engage, what types of bets they select, and how much they risk based on context, game momentum, and specific moments over the course of the season, rather than sticking to pre-season declarations. In this environment, the report argues that operators need marketing teams that can immediately respond to live behavior instead of relying on static campaigns tied to predicted intent, and this is where Optimove’s Positionless Marketing approach is presented as crucial.
Positionless Marketing removes strict role boundaries, lengthy planning cycles, and manual handoffs so that every marketer can execute any task quickly and independently, helping brands adapt messaging, offers, and customer journeys as preferences reveal themselves in real time. Optimove’s platform—embedding AI since 2012 and integrating solutions such as Optimove Engage and Orchestrate for cross-channel decisioning and orchestration, Optimove Personalize for digital personalization, and Optimove Gamify for loyalty and gamification—has been credited with improving campaign efficiency by 88% and has twice been recognized as a Visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs.
Through Optimove Insights, the company’s analytical and research arm, these findings are positioned as a blueprint for turning data-driven understanding of intent-versus-reality gaps into timely, relevant, and effective campaigns that keep pace with NFL bettors from the regular season through the final whistle of the playoffs.
