NHL Odds to Make the Playoffs: How the Yes/No Market Works, How to Read the Price, and When It's Worth a Bet

Updated 15 Oct 2026 · By the BetHubCA team

Every fall, half the country convinces itself this is finally the year. Make-the-playoffs bets are where that optimism meets an actual price. They're one of the most underrated NHL markets, because they reward patience and a bit of maths more than knowing who'll win on a random Tuesday. They also tie up your money for months and carry a bigger built-in margin than a normal game. Here's how I'd walk a buddy through the market before he puts fifty bucks on his team getting in.

Ground rules: the legal gambling age is 19 in most provinces and 18 in Manitoba and Quebec. Regulated NHL futures are available through your province, like PlayNow in BC, Manitoba and Saskatchewan or Mise-o-jeu in Quebec. Cloudbet, which we link to, holds a Curaçao licence and is not licensed or authorized by any Canadian province. This site doesn't serve Ontario or Alberta residents. All prices below are invented examples for teaching, not picks.

How NHL teams make the playoffs

Sixteen of the 32 teams make the postseason, eight from each conference. In each conference, the top three teams in each of the two divisions qualify automatically. The last two spots are wild cards, going to the next two best records in the conference regardless of division.

Standings use points: 2 for a win, 1 for an overtime or shootout loss, 0 for a regulation loss. When teams finish level on points, tiebreakers kick in, starting with regulation wins, then regulation-plus-overtime wins, then total wins, and further steps after that. Those tiebreakers matter for betting more than people realize, because the last wild-card spot is often decided by a point or two.

Formats and tiebreak rules can be adjusted, so always check the current season's rules before betting.

What the "to make the playoffs" market looks like

For each team, books usually offer two sides: Yes (they qualify) and No (they miss). An example:

Implied probability is just 1 divided by the decimal odds. Add the two sides together and you get more than 100%. The extra is the book's margin, and in these markets it's often 6% to 8%, noticeably more than the 4% to 5% you'd see on a standard game line. To find the "fair" chance, divide each side's implied probability by the total. For Team A: 83.3 ÷ 107.1 = about 77.8% to make it.

Points pace: the quick maths that keeps you honest

Over an 82-game season there are 164 points available. A team's points percentage is points earned divided by points available so far. Multiply that by 164 and you get its pace.

Example: after 20 games, a team has 24 points. It had 40 available, so its points percentage is 60%. Pace: 0.60 × 164 = about 98 points. Historically, the final wild-card spot has often landed somewhere in the low-to-mid 90s, though it varies by season and conference. A 98-point pace is comfortable on paper, but 20 games is a small sample in hockey.

The flip side is the "how many do they need" check. If a team has 30 points after 35 games and you think 94 gets in, it needs 64 points from its last 47 games, which is 64 ÷ 94 = 68% of the available points the rest of the way. Very few teams play at that level for half a season. That kind of maths is how you spot when a price on "Yes" is still built on hope.

Underlying numbers beat the standings

Early-season standings are full of luck: a hot goalie, a few shootout wins, a weak early schedule. Smarter prices lean on underlying numbers too, such as shot share and expected goals at five-on-five, goal differential, and save percentage compared with the goalie's career level.

• A team high in the standings but losing the shot battle every night is a candidate to slide. That can make "No" interesting.
• A team low in the standings but controlling play, with a goalie stopping far fewer pucks than usual, is a candidate to climb. That can make "Yes" interesting.
• Shootout records are close to coin flips over time, so a team padded by shootout points is weaker than its record suggests.

When to bet: three windows

Preseason. Prices are based on last season, offseason moves and expectations. This is where fan optimism is priced in most heavily, and where you need the strongest opinion to bet. Your money is locked up for six or seven months.

Around American Thanksgiving. There's an old NHL rule of thumb that teams in a playoff spot at US Thanksgiving in late November usually make the playoffs. It's a guideline, not a law, but the idea is useful: by then you have about 20 games of data, and the market starts reacting harder to the standings. That's when overreactions to hot or cold starts can create value.

The trade deadline. Teams that buy add help; teams that sell get weaker on purpose. Prices move fast around the deadline, and bubble teams can swing a lot in a week. If you've been following a team closely, this is when your knowledge is freshest compared with the market.

The cost of waiting: locked money

A preseason "Yes" at 1.80 sounds decent until you remember the money sits for about six months. If you could have used that bankroll on dozens of game bets in the meantime, the futures bet has an opportunity cost. That's another reason to only bet futures when you think the price is clearly off, not just slightly off.

It also explains why many bettors prefer to bet these markets mid-season. Less time locked up, more information, and the margin is the same or sometimes smaller.

Hedging a make-the-playoffs bet

Say you bet C$50 on a bubble team to make the playoffs at 2.60 in November. By March they're in a wild-card spot, and "Yes" is now 1.35 while "No" is 3.20. You could lock in a profit by betting on "No."

Your Yes bet returns C$130 if they get in. To guarantee the same return either way, stake on No so that No's return also equals C$130: C$130 ÷ 3.20 = about C$40.63. If they make it, you collect C$130 from the Yes bet and lose C$40.63 on No: profit about C$39.37 on C$90.63 staked. If they miss, you collect C$130 from No and lose your original C$50: same profit, about C$39.37. Hedging costs you some upside, but it turns a nervous March into a guaranteed small win. Whether it's worth it depends on how confident you are, and on the margin you pay on the hedge.

Settlement rules worth reading

• Most books settle as soon as the outcome is certain: when a team clinches, or when it's mathematically eliminated.
• Bets usually stand regardless of trades, injuries, coaching changes or a shortened season, unless the book's rules say otherwise. Read the rules for what happens if a season is cut short or the format changes.
• Some books offer "Yes" only, without a "No" side. Without both sides you can't easily see the margin, which is a reason to compare with a book that offers both.
• Play-in or format changes in future seasons could change what "make the playoffs" means. Check the rule text.

The Canadian-fan problem

Canadian NHL fans are some of the most passionate in the world, and books know it. Seven Canadian teams carry big fan bases that pour money into "Yes" every preseason. When lots of fan money lands on one side, the price on that side can get worse, meaning "Yes" on a popular Canadian team may be priced shorter than its real chances deserve.

That doesn't mean "No" on your favourite team is automatically value, and betting against your own team takes a certain kind of personality. It means you should be extra strict when your heart is involved. A simple test: would you take this price on the same team if it played in a US market you don't care about? If not, skip it.

Schedule strength and the back half of the season

Two teams with the same points total in January can be in very different spots. One might have played more home games and already finished most of its road trips. The other might still face a long stretch away from home, several back-to-backs and a heavy run against division leaders. Games in hand matter too: a team two points back with three games in hand is often in better shape than the standings suggest. Before betting a bubble team, look at its remaining schedule. Count home versus away games, back-to-backs, and how many games are against the teams it's fighting with for a spot. Those direct matchups are often called "four-point games," because a regulation win both adds two points for you and denies two to a rival. A bubble team with plenty of head-to-head games left has more control over its own fate, which tends to make prices on both sides swing more as those games come up. That's when sharp, schedule-aware bettors tend to find the best moments to get in or to hedge.

Using make-the-playoffs bets with other futures

These bets connect with other futures in useful ways. If you like a team to win its division, "make the playoffs" is a safer, lower-paying version of the same opinion. If you think a team is a dark horse to go deep, a "Yes" bet early plus a series bet later can be a staged way to back that view. Just don't let futures pile up: it's easy to end up with a quarter of your bankroll locked into bets you can't touch until April.

Crypto and long-term bets

Futures and crypto add a twist. If you bet a make-the-playoffs market in bitcoin, your result six months later depends on the hockey and on what the coin did in the meantime. A stablecoin such as USDT or USDC keeps the value steady in US dollars, though still not in Canadian dollars. Also check that any offshore site you use is one you trust to still be paying out at season's end, since your money sits there the whole time. Keep records, since crypto is treated as property for Canadian tax purposes.

Common mistakes

• Betting your team every preseason out of loyalty rather than price.
• Overreacting to a 5-0 or 0-5 start. Ten games is a very small sample in hockey.
• Ignoring the division. A team in a stacked division may need the wild card even with a strong record.
• Forgetting tiebreakers. Regulation wins can decide the last spot.
• Locking too much bankroll in futures and then chasing on game nights with what's left.

Keep it fun

A make-the-playoffs bet can make a long season more fun to follow, but it should never be money you need. If betting is causing stress or you're chasing losses, help is free and confidential: BC's Gambling Support line is 1-888-795-6111, Manitoba's is 1-800-463-1554, Saskatchewan's is 1-800-306-6789, and Quebec's Jeu: aide et référence is 1 800 461-0140. More provincial lines are in the box on this page.

My take

NHL odds to make the playoffs are a market for patient, numbers-first bettors. Convert prices to implied chances and strip out the margin, check points pace against a realistic cut line, lean on underlying numbers over hot starts, and be extra tough on your own team's "Yes." Bet when you think the price is clearly wrong, size it knowing your money is locked for months, and don't be shy about hedging when a good position gets better.