The Mid-American Conference isn’t just a beloved college football subsection featuring fun styles of play and a bunch of in-state rivalries. Entering 2021, the MAC is also one of the best college football betting conferences in the nation and full of opportunity for bettors ahead of next week's season kickoff on Thursday, Sept. 2.

We’ll be keeping tabs on the MAC all season, posting weekly updates and betting previews with everything you’ll need to know about legal wagering from Mount Pleasant to Athens, and everywhere in between.

The MAC is perfect for a hyper-focused breakdown among serious gamblers. The majority of teams are in legal gambling states, so if you visit Michigan sports betting sites or Indiana sports betting sites, or any of the other states where sports betting is legal, you won’t have any trouble getting action.

The lines aren’t as tight as you’ll see in the SEC or Big Ten because the betting handles are smaller. The conference also brings the midweek entertainment and wagering opportunities on betting apps and betting sites with games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in November.

The conference is an absolute blast, known for pinball scoring and epic fourth quarters. We’ll be digging in like never before this season to enjoy the betting ride.

2021 MAC Championship Odds

Odds via BetMGM and current as of publication. Check out our BetMGM sportsbook review.

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2021 MAC Betting Tips For The Season

How the West Has Won

There’s still plenty of parity in the MAC, but the West division has been the stronger side in recent years. It certainly looks like that’ll be the case again in 2021.

The top two betting favorites at major betting apps are both in the West division, with Toledo in front at +220 with BetMGM . Defending champion Ball State is +425 after upsetting Buffalo in the 2020 championship game for its first title since 1996.

Because the West is top-heavy, you’ll find some value in the East division. Buffalo and Ohio are both listed at +550 , with the Bulls coming off a 5-0 regular season before the title game upset. Ohio only played three games and finished 2-1, but both programs should be strong again.

We’ll see how it all shakes out, but college football futures markets clearly favor the West to produce another champion in December.

Fall in Love with the Over

Normally this is terrible advice when it comes to over/under betting. The public obviously prefers betting overs because it’s more fun to watch and hope for a ton of points. The under tends to carry some value in big-time matchups as a result, and we’d never recommend blindly betting the over in most circumstances.

But here’s another reason the MAC is so much fun – these matchups almost always deliver a ton of offense and the over has hit consistently no matter how high oddsmakers have set the number.

Of the 12 teams in conference, only three have seen the under hit more often than the over in the past two seasons – Miami (Ohio), Western Michigan and Bowling Green. The over is .500 or better for all remaining teams, and has been an especially savvy bet for the remaining Michigan schools.

Central Michigan has been one of the best over teams in the country at 10-4, while Eastern Michigan is right there at 8-3-2. The over is 8-5 in Buffalo games and we wouldn’t be surprised to see these three schools carry over bettors for another profitable season in 2021.

Shop Around

From Illinois sports betting sites to Michigan operators, the ability to easily place legal bets throughout much of MAC country is one more reason the conference is so appealing.

You’ve got three Michigan schools in Western, Central and Eastern, all available to bet online throughout the state. Same goes for Northern Illinois, with online betting now legal there (albeit with a required in-person registration).

Bettors in Buffalo, New York can get down, as can those in Indiana for Ball State. The pressure is also on regarding Ohio sports betting with four of its five border states offering legal sports betting. If the Buckeye State does move to embrace sports betting in the coming years, it would bring six more schools into play and provide legal wagering for the entire conference.

For bettors in current states, we highly recommend signing up for multiple sportsbooks before the start of the season. This allows you to find the best line on every game, because it does differ from book to book. Even those one-point differences add up over the course of the season, and you definitely want to take the best line available for every bet regardless of circumstance.

We’ll provide the best college football lines for you in this space every week, along with complete coverage of the most wager-friendly conference in the nation.

Select Week 1 MAC Betting Lines

Odds via DraftKings , as well as FanDuel and PointsBet. Check out our DraftKings vs. FanDuel review for the latest comparison of the two sportsbooks.

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