What is a first touchdown bet?
A first touchdown bet (first TD scorer) is a wager on which player scores the game's first touchdown. Every skill player on both rosters is priced, typically 25 to 35 names per game, with favorites around +400 to +600 and long shots at +5000 or more.
Why are first touchdown odds so long?
Because no single player is ever likely to score first. Across 1,087 NFL games, even a team's leading touchdown scorer only got the first TD 30.3% of the time. Books also build roughly 19% vigorish into this market, about four times a normal point spread bet.
Who scores the first touchdown most often?
By position: wide receivers 37.3%, running backs 33.9%, tight ends 15.0%, quarterbacks 7.8%. The favorite on the spread scores the game's first touchdown 59.8% of the time, rising to 65.6% for favorites of seven or more points.
How to find value in first touchdown bets
Opportunity beats talent. The strongest predictors are role-based: carries inside the 5-yard line for running backs (when the goal-line back and the volume back are different players, the goal-line back scores the first rushing TD 61% of the time), red-zone target share for tight ends (roughly twice as predictive as overall volume), and a blend of total and inside-10 targets for receivers. Price matters as much as the pick: with five sportsbooks quoting every player, the same bet is often 20% better at one book than another.
That is exactly what our model does every week: it prices all 30+ players in every game from play-by-play usage data, strips the vig from the market consensus, and flags the picks where our number beats the devigged price at three or more books. Every pick is published before kickoff and graded automatically from official play-by-play on the results page.