The National Football League playoff season is upon us and while the playoffs are among the most difficult games to predict, many fans, including some who don’t usually bet on sports, will be in on the action. Playoff betting introduces some new factors that don’t come up during the regular season. Some more important points:

– playoffs offer a limited schedule – not as many options for Teasers or Parlays

– Weather is a more pronounced factor – make sure you take extra care when playing on a hot weather road team going into a cold environment.

– The home effect

In his study of hometown dogs at the end of the season, Richard Borghesi of Texas State University found that there were a statistically significant number of wins by underdog hometown teams to justify a winning formula. Studying NFL games from 1981 to 2000, he found that house dogs at the end of the season (weeks 15 to 18) outscored the difference by an average of 4.46 points. He should note that there are not many games to choose from, so the sample size is relatively small, but there were enough samples to justify a statistical trend. In the playoffs, the home dog won by an average of 11.3 points (again small sample).

You may be wondering how this compares to weeks 1-14. On average, visitors win by 0.09 points when all games are taken into account (damn, those odds makers are good). However, in weeks 15 through 18, home teams win by an average of 2.06 points, and home teams in the playoffs win by an average of 2.86 points. Betting on late local underdogs was profitable in each of the 5-year increments studied between 1981 and 2000.

Borghesi also found some interesting trends in cold-weather gear and the effect of the weather on it. In August-September, cold weather teams lost to the spread by an average of 1.3 points. In October, they won by .84 points against the spread. For November, they were won by an average of 1.49 points and for December-January it was up to 1.93 points.

Just some interesting numbers to consider when the playoffs begin.