Bowl game season is the busiest time of year for NCAA football. So many high-stakes games are being played, including the college football playoff and, then, the National Championship. While those matchups receive the most attention, college football bettors also have a swathe of other season finales to help them get their fix. Among the most popular second-tier trophy bouts is the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, a game that features a variety of different opponents depending on the year. And you better believe Duke’s Mayo Bowl odds are a hot commodity when they make up one of the 10 most popular end-of-season affairs.

At the same time, there is a layer of mystery to how this quasi-title bout takes place. Which teams are eligible to participate? How does the college football playoff impact its availability? What exactly are the stakes? Are there any differences from betting on other bowl games? Which gambling strategies work best for a game of this calibre?

Fret not, friends. Secondary bowl games always call for a little extra contest and preparation. We’re here to give you both.

Best Duke's Mayo Bowl Betting Sites

Some Duke’s Mayo Bowl bettors may just assume every gambling experience is the same. We don’t blame them. Duke’s Mayo Bowl odds are offered everywhere. But that initial sentiment is wrong. You need to do some poking around to find the best sportsbooks for your wagers.

Compiling a list of the top betting landing spots rests on a number of factors. Which sites off the best sign-up bonuses and have the most rewarding promos for returning customers? Which online sportsbooks offer the fastest deposits and quickest payouts? Who provides you with the biggest selection of wager types? And timely odds deliveries?

We’ve taken all this into account and come up with a collection of sportsbooks not just experts in Duke’s Mayo Bowl spreads, but college football betting in general:

College Football Duke’s Mayo Bowl Betting Odds

College football bowl game odds are unfortunately not posted in advance. There’s no way of effectively narrowing down the candidates because participants can come from any number of different conferences.

In the Duke’s Mayo Bowl’s case, it features a team from the Atlantic Coastal Conference (ACC) and another from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) or the Big 10. The exact teams chosen depends on the regular season’s final standings.

The top teams will be sorted into one of the six major bowl games, two of which are considered the college football playoff. Other notable performers will then be divided up into the remaining bowl games based on criteria as we mentioned above. This is why futures are impossible for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl: It doesn’t feature the first-place team from either three conferences in most years.

Belk Bowl Futures Odds

We still consider it our duty to keep you informed as soon as possible. So, we will post the Duke’s Mayo Bowl betting lines here once they come in, which tends to be a week or so before kickoff.

Click here if you are looking for other NCAAF regular-season odds or other bowls odds.

The odds were last updated on December 13, 2023:

Duke’s Mayo Bowl Odds

betonline betus bovada
North Carolina Tar Heels +180 +170 +180
West Virginia Mountaineers -220 -210 -220

Usually, if you’re itching to make a big-picture bet, you can invest in NCAA football win totals, college football playoff futures, or National Championship futures. Unfortunately, the coming 2020 college football season—and the attached 2021 NCAA football bowl game season—is currently compromised.

Schools are scrambling to see whether they’ll be able to play on time or at all amid the coronavirus pandemic. Some programs, including the Big 10, have already postponed their schedule until at least the spring. Others appear to be on the verge of following.

Whatever happens, will directly impact the outcome of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. If the season isn’t postponed, any team that has delayed its play will be automatically yanked from consideration. For now, that would mean no Big 10 participants.

In the event the season is postponed, though, you’ll see a whole different kind of Duke’s Mayo Bowl odds shift. Squads with higher-end prospects preparing for the 2021 NFL draft will inevitably opt-out of the late start, thereby diminishing their school’s chances of vying for any bowl game. Really, this will be an issue even if the season kicks off as planned. Some higher-profile names from primetime schools like LSU and Clemson have already opted out of playing regardless of when the year might get underway.

Keep all this at the back of your mind as you prepare to eventually bet on NCAA football futures. The field you are used to seeing—and perhaps saw when lines first opened—won’t be business as usual.

College Football Belk Bowl

A Guide to College Football's Duke's Mayo Bowl

One of the most common questions about the Duke's Mayo Bowl is the process by which the participants are determined. Sure, we know one comes from the ACC and the other from the Big 10 or SEC, but the actual matchup is left billowing in the wind until a bunch of other games is sorted out.

Every second-tier season finale like the Duke's Mayo Bowl hinges on the more importance bowl games, of which there are six:

Two of these games will always determine who goes to the National Championship, while the other four hold more cachet and are reserved for the highest seeded teams remaining. Those seeds are not handed out based on conference standing. National rankings are instead cobbled together by a committee that meets a few times a year. They don't follow one formula to order the top 25 teams, but we do know they heavily consider the strength of schedule and prioritize teams with undefeated records.

Schools are assigned bowl games relative to where they finish on this national poll. The top four seeds head to the college football playoff. Then, typically, the highest seeds after that wind up in one of the other four matchups.

From there, that's how the NCAA gets its pool for the secondary bowl games, which aside from the Duke's Mayo Bowl also include the following:

These bowl games usually have predetermined criteria, like how we know which three conferences the Duke's Mayo Bowl's challengers will be coming from. At the same time, certain ones take priority over the others. The Duke's Mayo Bowl does not top this hierarchy. The Alamo Bowl and Citrus Bowl are both considered more prestigious.

Essentially, then, once the matchups for eight of college football's most popular bowl games are hashed, that's when we'll know who's taking the field in the Duke's Mayo Bowl.

How to Capitalize on Duke's Mayo Bowl Betting Odds

Belk Bowl Betting Strategies

There is no universal college football betting strategy that applies to everyone. Everyone's situation is different. High rollers have their own strategies. Some people prefer to follow predicting college football betting trends. Others like to focus on live betting. Certain gamblers will work futures or props more often. It varies.

One rule, however, applies to everyone who plans to gamble on college football season finales, including the Duke's Mayo Bowl: Get your bets in as early as possible once the lines are released.

Why should you bet early?

Since bowl season is catnip for sportsbooks, they're dealing with a flurry of action. Without fail, each year, initial lines are tweaked by the oddsmakers to account for an abnormal amount of action on one team or particular wager. This majority outlier doesn't always amount to a successful bet, but it does usually result in lines that are harder to reconcile, especially for those hoping to invest in spreads or the over/under.

Jumping on the first release ensures you'll have a better chance of spotting a market efficiency, even if it's not the one linemakers initially adjust. That said, if you are uncomfortable with placing a wager on a game that's a week or more away from kickoff, we'd recommend you give prop betting a chance. Sportsbooks really increase their off-beat selection for bowl games.

The optionality at your disposal won't be as illustrious as it would be for one of the New Year's Six bowls or the National Championship, but you'll have access to lines tailored to specific players and stat lines. And while these opening odds can often shift as time goes on themselves, the swings aren't nearly as stark as they are for the Duke's Mayo Bowl's main outcome.

Duke's Mayo Bowl FAQs

Meet the author

Quinn Allen

Quinn Allen leverages his broadcast journalism degree and passion for sports in his betting previews and analysis. Based in Kelowna, Canada, he has emerged as an expert voice with picks featured on OSB, MTS, SBD, and as a ClutchPoints editor. With a lifelong fandom of...