Sportsbook Insiders: Increase in Penalties Bring Added Factor to Betting NFL

If you've been noticing that penalties seem to have increased across the NFL this season, you aren't just imagining it. Through the first eight weeks of the season, each game has seen an average of 15.1 accepted penalties. That's up from 12.7 a season ago, and it's the highest mark in NFL history since it started being tracked in 1978.

While the amount of penalties and what to do about them is a discussion for another day, we bettors need to think about whether or not we should be using this information to help us handicap games in the second half of the season.

To help get an answer of what to do about all the yellow laundry, I spoke to traders at several sportsbooks to see if they're doing anything differently when setting lines for each week's games.

I asked Ty Gour, a Sports Trader at Fanatics Sportsbook, if he considers the amount of penalties a team takes when setting their odds for a given game.

"The short answer is yes, but not directly. When a team takes penalties on either side of the ball, that will affect their offensive and defensive efficiency ratings, which drive our team ratings, so it is baked in."

It's worth noting that the Cleveland Browns enter Week 9 averaging the most penalties per game at 9.0. The Minnesota Vikings are averaging the fewest at 5.6 flags per game.

Johnny Avello, the Director of Race and Sports Operations for DraftKings Sportsbook, had a bit of a different answer, admitting that they've had to adjust the totals in games due to the increase in flags being thrown this season.

"They don't affect ratings, but they do influence to our approach on the line making. For instance, with points easier to come by right now we're seeing scores climbing pretty steadily, so we're having to adjust our totals quite a bit to compensate for the way the games are being officiated. So not so much on the point [spread] side, but certainly the totals right now.

At the end of the day, it seems obvious that it's something we should consider moving through the second half of the season. If penalties are enough to move a sportsbook's ratings of a team, then it's worth looking at how each team does in that area before backing them with your money.

You also may want to avoid betting on the UNDER of games moving forward, given how it has led to an increase in scoring.

The biggest question now is whether or not this is a trend that will remain permanent, or if we're going to see a regression to the mean in the second half of the 2026 campaign. Only time will tell.

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