The Best NHL Betting Sites for 2024

An Introduction to the National Hockey League (NHL)

Established in 1917, the National Hockey League (NHL) is recognized as the best ice hockey league in the world. The NHL is one of the ‘Big Four’ professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, alongside Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Football League (NFL).

Only three teams competed in the first two seasons of the NHL, but the league has expanded numerous times throughout its history and now consists of 32 teams – 25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The Vegas Golden Knights officially became the 31st NHL franchise in 2017, while Seattle Kraken officially became the league’s 32nd franchise in 2021.

NHL teams are split into two conferences: the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Each conference contains two divisions of eight teams. The two divisions within the East Conference are the Atlantic Division and Metropolitan Division, while the two divisions within the West Conference are the Central Division and Pacific Division.

Here’s the 32 teams competing in the 2021-22 NHL season:

NHL Betting – Which Team Will Win?

It is very important to note there are two primary ways to bet which team will win an NHL game:

• Regulation Time Only (also called 1X2) is a three-way betting market where the wagering options are home team, away team, and draw. In this form of betting the game is final for wagering purposes at the end of regulation. Thus, if you bet the home team, and they don’t win until overtime or shootout the bet is a loss. The winners in that scenario are those who bet the draw.

• Full Game Betting (also called moneyline betting, or home/away) is a wager on which team will win. For this overtime and shootouts count. Thus, the winning team per NHL stats is also the winner for betting purposes.

At most online bookmakers you will find both of the above options offered. However, at some catering to specific markets this is not always the case.

In Canada, regulation time only (where the draw is a betting option) has long been the most common way to bet NHL. In the United States, full game betting is most common. This is how Las Vegas sportsbooks first offered it. If you do not see the option to bet a draw and no wording saying regulation time only (or draw no bet), then you will know the site is offering full game betting.

We mention the different ways to bet NHL game winner in detail because it is important when shopping the odds. Odds for a team to win in regulation (where they lose if it is a draw) will appear attractive if mistaking them as being full game odds. Don’t get caught off-guard by this.

Understanding the NHL Betting Market

Before discussing any form of NHL betting strategy, it is important to understand it is for all intents and purposes an efficient betting market.

It is handicapped using advanced statistics which include, but are not limited to, stats such as goals for, goals against, goals differential, power play success rate, power play kill rate, shot %, save %, winning streak, conference standing, fenwick close %, PDO, 5/5 goal for/against.

The required data to handicap is widely available on the web. There is also a lot of it.

Casual players can benefit from this without knowing predictive modeling themselves. This starts for the reason that some bookmakers are so comfortable in their handicapping and risk management on NHL that they base their odds on a dimeline. This means teams equally matched are priced as home -105 / away -105 in American format or 1.9524/1.9524 in decimal format.

If a casual bettor was to bet only their favorite team using a dimeline, they’d expect to average a loss of 2.38% their wagering volume. If doing the same with a nickel line this falls to 1.22%. That’s using only one betting site. Shopping the odds aggressively using many sites it is possible to bet against a theoretical house advantage of under 1%! With handicapping, that can be cut to a fraction of a percent.

Strategy for Novice NHL Bettors – Capping the Market

Again, if you use many online betting sites and bet at whichever has the best odds, you’ll have only a very tiny theoretical house advantage to overcome. It is possible for any player to get lucky as NHL betting done correctly has much better odds than most casino games. Not on average, but big scores in casinos are common enough. Here, the chances are even better – but using multiple betting sites to shop odds is key.

To take it a step further, it becomes possible to predict scoring using the betting market. To do this is it important to use sites that offer NHL bets at low margins.

The next step in predicting scores based on the market is to use the oddsportal.com NHL feed. Be sure to create an account and log-in as this will give you access to the highest number of bookmakers.

Using the various tabs, you will find odds at many betting sites for full game (home/away tab), puck lines (AH tab), and totals (over/under tab). Log in to one of the best NHL betting sites and get their odds while comparing the ones at oddsportal to ensure you don’t leave any money on the table.

Applying Poisson Distribution to NHL Betting

If you can predict an exact score, it becomes possible to calculate odds for almost anything using a distribution model.

The easiest ‘mostly acceptable’ method is using Poisson as it can be calculated in a Microsoft Excel sheet. This formula is =POISSON(x,mean,cumulative). The last three items are variables. X is what we’re calculating for, mean is what we know, and cumulative is true if we want to know the odds of at least that number and false if we want to know that number exact.

This information makes it possible to build charts of all possible scores (see our soccer/football example here). To handicap an exact score of 4-2 run the Ducks chances of scoring 4 exact and the Red Wings chances of scoring 2 exact. Keeping the percentages as a decimal format, multiple the two to get the probability of an exact score of 4-2.

If you understand implied probability, shop betting sites offering odds on 4-2 correct score. Look for any odds where the implied probability thereof is less than the true probability just calculated using Poisson.

Furthermore, if you calculate all correct scores using Poisson you can then put them into a chart for pricing about anything.

For capping Ducks -1.5 on a puckline add together the probabilities of all correct scores that have them winning by 2 or more. If you want to calculate if both teams will score add all the probabilities where teams score at least one.

Advanced NHL Handicapping

What was covered in the previous section was simply an introduction for novice bettors. To take it a step further, first understand Poisson is not exact. Not all scoring in ice hockey is random, because the pace of the game changes depending on the score. There is also the issue of goalies being pulled at the end of the game leading to 5 on 6 scoring and empty net goals. Successful NHL bettors factor the covariance and use a bivariate Poisson distribution.

Getting highly advanced is predicting scores without relying on taking estimates from the betting market. This involves predictive modeling which requires an understanding of applied statistics, access to historical data, software, and basic programming knowledge. For those green, looking to get to that level, note that throughout the year free courses are offered online by major universities such as Duke, University of Toronto, Johns Hopkins, and Princeton.

Ready to Bet on the NHL?

Now that you’re an expert on NHL betting, it’s time to join our top-rated betting site and bet on the latest fixtures.