Betting on USC Trojans Football

The University of Southern California (USC) is off to another great start to the college football season. 

However, the battle for legal sports betting in California hit a major speed bump on Nov. 8, when voters emphatically rejected Prop 26 and Prop 27 at the polls. That means we’ll have to wait until the 2024 election to see if California will legalize sports betting, and it wouldn’t launch until 2025.

Despite that, we’ll try to prepare you for the next college football season by showing you how it all works, including details about USC football odds, top sportsbooks for college football betting likely to come to CA, types of bets you can take, and more.

USC Trojans Odds at the Best Sportsbooks

Odds updated as of Nov. 2, 2022.

Where Can You Bet on USC Trojans?

As things stand, sports betting is unavailable in California, both in a retail setting or online.

Retail Sportsbooks

If Prop 26 had passed, Indian gaming casinos and racetracks would have been allowed to open sportsbooks on their premises. Of course, the casinos were campaigning hard for this option, as new licensing would have also enabled them to expand their gaming to roulette and craps.

Online Sportsbooks

Prop 27 would have legalized online and mobile betting in California. The market would have been limited to sportsbooks that already operate in 10 other states, meaning that only the most prominent brands like DraftKings California, FanDuel California, and BetMGM California would have been eligible.

These three alone raised nearly $100 million for the Prop 27 campaign. 

The sportsbooks would have been required to partner with one of the existing tribal casinos and pay a $100 million licensing fee for the first five years.

USC Trojans Schedule 2022

Here’s the entire regular season schedule:

• vs. Rice, Saturday, September 3
• @ Stanford, Saturday, September 10
• vs. Fresno State, Saturday, September 17
• @ Oregon State, Saturday, September 24
• vs. Arizona State, Saturday, October 1
• vs. Washington State, Saturday, October 8
• @ Utah, Saturday, October 15, 5:00 p.m. PT
• @ Arizona, Saturday, October 29, TBD
• vs. California, Saturday, November 5, TBD
• vs. Colorado, Friday, November 11, 6:30 p.m. PT
• @ UCLA, Saturday, November 19, TBD
• vs. Notre Dame, Saturday, November 26, TBD

USC Trojans Betting News and Updates

• What We Learned From the Initial College Football Playoff Rankings (Nov. 1)
• Caleb Williams rising in this week’s College Wire Heisman Poll (Oct. 5)
• Former Notre Dame commit Elijah Paige chooses USC (Oct. 4)
• Takeaways from USC’s win over Arizona State (Oct. 2)
• USC Football moves up to No. 6 in AP Top 25 Rankings (Sept. 25)

How USC Trojans Betting Odds Are Calculated

Before you go searching for the best odds at California sportsbooks, you should familiarize yourself with how odds are calculated in the first place.

Odds are made by oddsmakers — professionals working for sports betting companies. Their goal is to come up with odds for a given team based on a number of factors. Of course, the team’s overall quality is what oddsmakers use as a starting point, but they must also factor in things like form, injuries, schedule, personnel changes, and even the weather forecast for game day.

Once the initial USC football odds are released days or even a few weeks before a given game, they’ll change based on all the above factors and how other bettors react to them. 

Receiving a disproportionate amount of bets on one side will make the sportsbook shift the odds to make a bet on the other side more attractive, as they don’t want to expose themselves to too much risk.

There isn’t an exact formula for creating betting odds, so some subjectivity is involved. Since every betting company has its own oddsmakers, the odds can differ between books.

So, if you want to bet with the best odds for USC Trojans, you should go odds shopping by comparing the prices in as many different sportsbooks as possible and choosing the most favorable ones.

Apart from understanding how odds are calculated, you should also be familiar with how they are presented and what types of bets you can take on USC Trojans and other college football teams. Here are some explanations of the most popular football betting options, including the moneyline, point spread, futures, and props.

USC Trojans Moneyline Odds

If you simply want to bet on who wins the game, you should look at the moneyline odds. One side will have plus (+) odds indicating that they’re underdogs, while the favorites are always presented with negative (-) numbers. The greater the number, the bigger the favorite/underdog.

Here’s an example of moneyline odds for the USC vs. Washington State game taken from DraftKings:

• USC Trojans -460
• Washington State Cougars +370

As you can see, the Trojans are heavy favorites to win this one, but that also means that betting on them won’t bring you that much of a profit. You’ll have to risk $460 for a $100 hit. Meanwhile, if you bet on the Cougars and they win, you can make a $370 profit on just a $100 wager.

USC Trojans Point Spread

Games with significant discrepancies in quality between the two teams are standard in college football, which can sometimes make moneyline betting a little underwhelming. The point spread is there to even the odds out by giving handicap points to the underdog.

The goal is to predict which team will cover the spread. Here’s an example from the same game:

• USC Trojans -105 (-13)
• Washington State Cougars -115 (+13)

The Cougars are given a 13-point advantage, meaning you can win a point spread bet on them even if they lose by up to 12 points. A bet on the Trojans here will only be successful if they win by 14 or more. If the Trojans win by exactly 13 points, the bet is a push, meaning you’ll get your stake back.

USC Trojans Futures Odds

You don’t have to limit yourself to betting on individual Trojans games. There are also plenty of futures markets, letting you predict how the team will do long-term.

Most top-level sportsbooks have USC football NCAAF odds, allowing you to place a bet on the team to win the national championship. If you’re not confident that the Trojans will win the championship but feel they can at least go far, you can go for the Trojans odds of making the playoffs or winning their conference.

Here are the best USC Trojans odds in California in terms of futures markets:

Odds are from DraftKings as of Nov. 2, 2022.

USC Trojans Prop Bets

Once sports betting reaches California (in whichever form), people can expect a diverse assortment of bets ranging from the usual moneyline, point spread, and futures we’ve already explained to all kinds of proposition bets (props).

Props are a set of wagers relating to miscellaneous occurrences during the game. For instance, popular team props include how many points the Trojans will score in the first period, whether the team’s total points will be odd or even, the team’s winning margin, the first team to score, and much more.

How to Bet on USC Trojans in California

How you can bet on USC Trojans in California will depend on the Nov. 8 ballot. If retail betting is voted in, you’ll need to physically visit one of the casinos and racetracks that feature a sportsbook. If online betting gets the vote, you can bet from home or any location inside the state.

Here’s what the process of placing an online bet looks like in regulated states:

1. Go to the sportsbook’s website or download its app.
2. Select your state from the drop-down menu and register by filling out your name, birthday, email, last four digits of your SSN, and other required details.
3. If applicable, type in the promo code in the corresponding field, allowing you to claim California sports betting bonuses.
4. Go to the cashier and complete a deposit using a card, e-wallet, online banking, or any other available method.
5. Find NCAAF on the list of sports and competitions and look for the Trojans’ next game.
6. To add a bet to your bet slip, click/tap on the corresponding odds. From there, you only need to input your stake and confirm the wager.

Live Betting on USC Trojans in California

If you didn’t place your bets before the kick-off, you could still do it during the game. Just search for the LIVE tab in your sportsbook, and you’ll see a list of games and events currently in play.

You’ll find the same betting options as pre-game (except futures) and can place bets from the first to the last minute. Of course, the odds will change more rapidly and reflect the situation on the field.

How to Bet on NCAAF in California

You can bet on the outcome of NCAAF in numerous ways. Apart from choosing the national championship winner or the champion of each conference, you can predict whether a team will reach the playoffs and how many regular season games they’ll win.

The options are not as diverse as those on the NFL and Super Bowl, but top sportsbooks like DraftKings will still give you plenty of markets to choose from.

USC Trojans Stadium

USC Trojans are among the main occupants of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The stadium once hosted the LA Rams, LA Dodgers, UCLA Bruins, and other renowned teams and sporting events.

Name: Los Angeles Memorial Stadium

Address: 911 Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90037

Capacity: 77,500

Opened: 1923

Main tenants: USC Trojans

Betting on USC Trojans Football FAQs