UMass Minutemen Odds

How to Bet on the Massachusetts Minutemen

As of August 2022, sports betting in Massachusetts officially legalized, which brought college football wagering along with plenty of other bet offerings to the Bay State.

Although sports betting is legal, Massachusetts residents cannot wager on in-state schools such as Boston College, or UMass. However, residents can travel over to adjacent states such as Maine, or Vermont to bet on the Minutemen this fall. Below, we have provided a detailed preview of the Minutemen for this upcoming season and how you can wager on them.

2024 UMass Minutemen Football

For the first time in nearly a decade, the UMass Minutemen enter a college football season as a member of a conference. Now, UMass isn’t slated to join the MAC until the 2025-2026 season, but they will play 5 MAC opponents this upcoming fall.

After seeing a lot of success in the FCS, Division I’s subdivision, in the 2000s, UMass made the transition to the MAC in 2012. However, from 2012-2015, as a member of the MAC, UMass never managed to eclipse three wins.

After 2015, UMass football entered a period of purgatory where they were one of the few FBS independents. But under head coach Don Brown, UMass reached their highest win total since 2018 with three wins in 2023, and are once again a member of the MAC coming into this season.

Former Clemson QB Taisun Phommachanh inject some life into the offense in his inaugural campaign and will look to build off that momentum into 2024. Anthony Simpson looks to be his top target in 2024 after leading the team with 57 receptions last season.

On the defensive side of the football, UMass struggled immensely a year ago as they relinquished 40+ points in six of their 12 games. UMass brought in two ACC transfers in Etinosa Reuben from Georgia Tech and Jaylen Hudson from Wake Forest to help bring the defensive line along.

As is the case with some of the bottom tier programs in FBS, UMass will have their work cut out for them in the nonconference part of their schedule (in this case, non-MAC teams). The Minutemen have Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi State, and Liberty outside of the MAC, as well as Wagner, Central Connecticut, and UConn. Going into the season, oddsmakers have UMass with a win total of 3.5.

UMass Minutemen Point Spreads

Betting on UMass against the spread was a mediocre proposition a year ago as the Minutemen went 5-7 ATS. For new bettors who don’t know what that means, let's go over an example from a year ago:

A UMass spread might look like this:

• UMass +10 (-110)
• UConn -10 (-110)

With UMass having lost this game 31-18, that means the Minutemen did not cover the spread in this matchup. The Minutemen would have had to have lost by 9 or fewer or won outright to cover this spread.

UMass Minutemen Over/Unders

Totals bets, known as an over/under wager, deal with how many combined points are scored in a respective game. In total bets, you’ll either choose over or under the designated total the sportsbook has set.

Let’s build off the example above: the total for this game was 44.5. Because the game had 49 combined points (31 + 18), the over would be the winning side of the total. 44 points or fewer would need to be scored for the under to win.

UMass Minutemen Moneylines

You might think betting on UMass' moneylines would be an easy way to lose a lot of cash, given that moneylines are just bets on who wins a game, but there’s more to it. Since UMass was an underdog in most of their games from a year ago, sportbooks will entice bettors with longer, more enticing odds.

For example, UMass was a +290 underdog against Army, but it won the game, so a $100 bet profited $290. If it had been a -290 favorite, that $100 bet would profit about $34.48.

UMass Minutemen Futures

You are free to take the Minutemen at +1000000 consensus odds on win the National Championship (but we would not advise that!).This kind of wager is what’s called a futures bet. Futures bets are bets that’ll settle at a later time, usually they are based on full season outcomes.

Other examples of future bets are conference championship wagers, a Heisman winner, or betting on win totals.