NHL Betting Sites

The National Hockey League not only provides an exhilarating experience every game, with the fast-paced gameplay and the aggression on the ice, but there’s also never a dull moment. As if that’s not exciting enough, betting on the NHL provides even more excitement. As one of the leading North American professional sports, there are always plenty of NHL betting odds available for every game – and even more odds selection during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

With divisional and conference championships and the Stanley Cup Finals, we have plenty of opportunities when betting on NHL markets, even more so in the post-season. We’ve swept the odds from all the top-tier providers to ensure you make the NHL best bets possible today.

Let’s consider betting on NHL odds and how we can profit during the 2022/23 season. The Stanley Cup winners odds were last updated on May 30, 2023:

NHL Stanley Cup Winners Odds 2023
Vegas Golden Knights	-140	-140	-135
Florida Panthers	+115	+115	+115

Latest NHL Betting News

Apr 12, 2023

Islanders a Huge Favorite Over Canadiens Wednesday Evening

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Mar 29, 2023

Maple Leafs Favored at Home Against Panthers Wednesday

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Mar 28, 2023

Hurricanes Favored Over Lightning in Battle Between Contenders

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Mar 24, 2023

Avalanche a Massive Favorite Over Lowly Coyotes Friday

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The NHL is made up of 32 teams, with 25 in the United States, and seven in Canada. The NHL started in 1917, with only four original teams – all based in Canada. The United States expansion began in 1924 with the Boston Bruins. The league expanded gradually as the decades passed, and by the millennium there were 30 teams, not seeing another til 2017, followed by the 32nd team added at the start of the 2021/22 season.

The 32 teams are divided into two conferences: the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Each conference is divided into two divisions, the East hosts the Atlantic and Metropolitan divisions, and the West hosts the Pacific and Central divisions.

Best NHL Bets May 2023

• BetUS has the Vegas Golden Knights as one of the top contenders for the Stanley Cup, with +480 odds for them to win it all.
• Erik Karlsson of the San Jose Sharks is the favorite to win the James Norris Trophy, according to BetOnline, with -200 odds in his favor.
• Bovada has listed Adam Fox of the New York Rangers as a strong contender for the Norris Trophy, with +425 odds to win it in 2023.
• GTBets has given the Toronto Maple Leafs a good shot at winning the Stanley Cup, with +450 odds in their favor.
• Linus Ullmark is the clear frontrunner for the 2023 Vezina Trophy, with -1100 odds in his favor.
• The Carolina Hurricanes to win the Stanley Cup, giving them +410 odds to claim the title.
• Conor McDavid is expected to win the Hart Memorial Trophy, with -1000 odds.
• David Pastrnak is a long shot to win the 2023 Hart Memorial Trophy, with +4000 odds.
• Both Canada and Finland are strong favorites to win the IIHF World Championship, with BetUS giving them both +225 odds.

Best online sportsbooks for NHL betting

Users can make NHL picks online at these sportsbooks; below, you’ll find a list of some of the best online bookies in the United States. These sites offer great odds and bonuses, so check our reviews before placing your wagers.

GTBets

GTBets is one of the oldest bookmakers, meaning they’ve got plenty of experience under their belts. They also have an easy-to-use website that allows you to place bets quickly and easily. They offer various NHL betting lines, including moneylines, parlays, futures, and play props, among many others. You can bet on any event, match, or game. Its customer service department, which is extremely helpful and friendly, sets them apart from others. When you make your first deposit, you receive 100% bonus cashback.

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Bovada

Bovada is one of the leading online bookmakers worldwide, providing an extensive range of sports betting products, including live betting, fixed odds betting, parlays, & much more for ice hockey fans. With the help of our experts, we can provide accurate previews and reviews of upcoming games in the NHL. The Bovada team of professionals also includes industry experts who can help to advise you, if anything were to go awry on your account in a timely fashion. Bet with confidence and peace of mind at Bovada.

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BetUS

BetUS has been around since 1994, offering quality sports betting lines and odds for nearly 20 years. While they do not offer the very best online NHL betting, our research shows that their customer support is excellent, so if you have any questions about your account or bets, feel free to contact them directly. They also offer a wide variety of deposit methods, including Bitcoin, Paypal, and Visa/Mastercard. Our experience was positive overall, and we’d strongly recommend them for bettors looking for a comprehensive betting platform.

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MyBookie

As the leading NHL sportsbooks for ice hockey fans throughout North America, MyBookie offers a wide range of betting products and services. Whether placing a single wager or planning your entire NHL season, MyBookie has everything you need to make informed decisions about how to bet. From live odds to live scores, their team of experts works hard to provide accurate information so you can enjoy the game and win big. Bet smarter in the MyBookie NHL sports book!

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BetOnline

Betonline is one of the more popular bookmakers in North America. They offer an array of odds, lines, bets, and betting features for NHL matches. They also cover hockey nicely and provide many options for placing an NHL bet online. Their focus is primarily on the United States, so when it comes to NHL, only a few bookmakers are offering a complete betting experience. If you are willing to work to get familiar with the site, you will find plenty of good value.

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Because we get so many questions regarding bookies such as FanDuel and DraftKings, we wanted to be clear about why they did not make it into our recommendations. In fact, we would recommend staying away from them, along with others in the same category like BetMGM, Unibet, Fox Bet, Pointsbet, Caesars, and BetRivers. They are overpriced and clunky alternatives to the sleek NHL betting sites we recommend. Signing up with these lower quality sportsbooks will make it really hard to make a profit during the Stanley Cup or any other hockey betting event.

The first step in learning how to bet on NHL games is to understand NHL betting odds.

NHL Betting Odds

NHL odds are those numbers you see next to a team name, whether positive or negative. This denotes how likely a team is to win the game. With the positive numbers indicating that the team is less likely to win than their opponent, and the negative number represents the favored team and would be more likely to win.

If you have the Toronto Maple Leafs at +300 and the Boston Bruins at -200, that means the Bruins are favored to win that game, and the Maple Leafs are the underdog. A bet on the Bruins wouldn’t pay out as much because the oddsmakers are predicting that they would be the ones to win, but a bet on the Maple Leafs would pay out much more if they did pull off the win.

NHL odds represent how much you would need to bet to win a certain amount of money. In the case above, you would need to bet $200 on the Bruins to win $100. You can bet any denomination, but that doesn’t sound like a bet that’s really worth your time unless you were 100% sure the Bruins would win the game. If you bet on the Maple Leafs, you would need to bet $100 to win $300 plus your initial stake.

Popular NHL Betting Options

Now that we’ve covered what NHL odds look like, let’s look at popular hockey betting types that you will be able to choose from when placing a bet on NHL games.

Betting on the NHL Moneyline

The easiest betting type you can lay down on any given NHL game is the moneyline. It’s simple and easy to understand and great for new bettors. Your job is to determine which team will win the game. We’ve outlined basic moneyline bets above, let’s dig in a little further.

If the Bruins and Maple Leafs are playing and you believe the Bruins will win, you select the Bruins and you’re good to go. Ensure you review the odds and the pregame matchups to ensure you do plenty of research before making your bets.

Let’s look at an example:

• Boston Bruins -120
• Toronto Maple Leafs +450

We changed the numbers around to give you a different perspective. The Bruins are still the favored team, with -120 odds. A $120 wager, with the Bruins winning, would pay out $100 plus your initial wager. The Maple Leafs are still the underdog, and if they upset the Bruins and win, a $100 wager would yield $450 plus your initial $100.

Moneylines are also nice because they have been the subject of so much research. For example, Samuel Buttrey published a model that uses a Markov-type computation to predict the victor in each match.  His model proved succesful as his results were “both positive and statistically significant.” If you do enough research, you can really start to see some great ways to improve your odds and your bottom line.

Betting on NHL Point Spreads

Point spreads in the NHL are commonly referred to as the ‘puck line’. It is the exact same as any other point spread, it just goes by a different name. Spreads are popular throughout all professional sports, but NHL puck lines can have really great odds and almost foolproof spreads.

Point spreads essentially give the underdog team an imaginary head start, meant to level the playing field in games that are one-sided. Your sportsbook has expert oddsmakers that will decide who the favored team is, and determine the spread based on how those two teams match up for the game.

The NHL puck line is essentially how many points a team must win or lose by, depending on which side you’re betting on. If you choose the favored team, their spread will be a negative number, and they must win the game by that amount of goals. If you choose the underdog, they must lose by less than that number of goals or win the game.

For example, if you have the St. Louis Blues at -3.5 and the Dallas Stars at +3.5, the Blues are favored to win the game. The Blues are expected to win by quite a few goals, and for your bet to win, they must beat the Stars by more than 4 goals. The Stars, on the other hand, need to win the game or lose by less than 3 goals.

The puck line changes as the game time get closer, and you could get better value the closer you are to game time, as sportsbooks balance the lines based on the bets that come in early. They try to have equal value on either side of the bet so the Stars could be even bigger underdogs on game day.

Betting on NHL Totals

When looking at the odds board, and you can’t decide which team to bet on, betting on the over/under or the totals can be a great opportunity to still get value out of a game. Totals betting is quite simple, and you don’t have to choose one team over another – you simply have to decide if the total amount of points scored by both teams collectively will be over or under the oddsmaker’s line.

If you have the Chicago Blackhawks versus the Nashville Predators, and the total is set at 7.5, you will need to decide if you think both teams will score more or less than five. If both teams easily get over four goals per game, that should be an easy bet to place, and you’d take the over.

Betting on NHL Props

Prop bets or proposition bets as they’re commonly referred to as are the more fun bets associated with any given game. Props are unusual circumstances or happenings that don’t have anything to do with the outcome of the game. You could bet on a certain player to score a goal or pin two players against each other to bet on who would have the most points.

Prop bets are just for fun, and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The best online sportsbooks offer a huge selection of props per game, providing a much greater variety than your neighbourhood retail sportsbook.

Betting on NHL Futures

NHL Futures are extremely popular early in the season because they offer huge value with higher risk. Betting on NHL Futures means you are placing a bet on which team will win an event outcome months in advance. As soon as the Stanley Cup is hoisted each year, sportsbooks put out the following year’s futures.

The main NHL Futures that sports bettors tend to focus on are the Winners of the Stanley Cup and the conference winners. Predicting if a team will win the Stanley Cup months before it happens can get you some great value in the long run.

Let’s use the 2018-2019 season for our example (because it’s an epic futures story). In June 2018, when the Stanley Cup Finals concluded, sportsbooks were quick to highlight the Tampa Bay Lightning as the favorites to win the 2019 Stanley Cup. The St. Louis Blues, on the other hand, had been sitting at 60-1 odds all season – even in January, they were the worst-ranked team in the NHL.

A lucky bettor placed a $600 bet on the Blues at 60-1 in January 2019, and won $36,000 in a huge upset – but a life-changing payday for certain Blues backers.

In some instances, you can find value in the average or middle of the pack teams sneaking up the standings and inching into the finals or even their conference finals.