If you’ve been king of the office football pool the last couple of seasons, you may be thinking about taking your skills onto the web and making the big bucks by betting on the NFL online.

If you’re just getting into NFL betting this season, here are a few rules to follow to make sure your first season is a winner.

Be selective – Just because there are up to 16 games a week doesn’t mean you should be placing that many bets every week of the season. Your bets should be about quality, not quantity. Only bet on the games in which you think you can pick the winner, and it will help your profits in the long run.

Don’t bet your favorite team or the local team – I never bet on my favorite team because I always overvalue them. If you bet against your favorite team and they do win, are you supposed to feel bad for losing the money, but feel good because your team won? More often than not, you’ll lose one way or another by betting on “your” team. The same goes for your local team. The media coverage of your team will likely be too positive for proper insight no matter how good or bad the team really is. This can skew your view of the team and cause you to bet the wrong way.

Don’t bet the spread, bet the team – If you’re just starting out with NFL betting, bet the moneyline instead of the spread. This way all you have to do is pick the team you think is going to win and not worry about how many points they have to score. The odds may not pay out as well on the moneyline if you bet on a lot of favorites, but if you win six moneyline bets compared to only two or three spread bets, you’ll likely make more money anyway.

Here are some great sports books:

Bodog Sportsbook

Caribsports.com