Sportsbooks and oddsmakers are unsurprisingly thrilled about College Football Playoff expansion

If there’s one group of people who won’t see any issue with the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams in 2026 (or potentially earlier), it’s those who run sportsbooks.

Extending the schedule of one of the most popular sports in the United States? And putting more games in primetime for a national audience? Yeah, that’ll have oddsmakers cheering.

“The 12-team playoff expansion news is great news for sportsbooks,” Tipico Sportsbook manager Sunny Gupta told Bet For The Win. “With the expected logistics to include six conference champions and six at-large bids, we expect the biggest schools to participate in this playoff. More eyeballs and more money is expected for this extended playoff, meaning more money to be made for sportsbooks. Bowl season has recently seen a number of key athletes sit out to avoid injury, however, with more meaningful games to be played we expect TV ratings to be higher and more money to be wagered.”

That all completely makes sense—though it remains to be seen if star players on lower-seeded teams sit out playoff games to preserve their draft stock rather than risk injury in four additional contests.

And while pricing out odds for outright winners may be a little more difficult in the short term, there’s plenty for bettors to like about Friday’s announcement. Namely, more options to chose from — which means more potential edges to find.

Potential futures hitting the market will likely include:

• How many teams from ‘X’ conference make the playoff
• Conference with the College Football Playoff winner
• Schools to host a playoff game

It also helps sportsbooks that many of college football’s powerhouses are located in states where legal sports wagering already exists. That includes Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Indiana and Oregon. California may very well be the next state to legalize betting this November.

Gone will be the days bettors could feel confident in a solid return for blindly putting down futures bets on Alabama and Ohio State. Instead the value may shift to smaller schools who have an easier path to the postseason (meaning we might not see a run like Cincinnati in 2021 again anytime soon).

More offerings are coming, and while more options tend to benefit consumers, there’s no question the payoff for sportsbooks will outweigh all of it.

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