Terry Savage, Tribune Content Agency

Fall is already in the air in many parts of the country. Kids are back in school and the football season has started. What’s the tie-in for a personal finance column? Well, for many millions of people the football season is also the start of the official “gambling season.”

It’s expected that legal football bettors will wager about $30 billion this year, up around 8% from last year, according to ESPN. And that’s the legal betting. That sum could be dwarfed by offshore betting parlors, which are estimated to rake in more than $100 billion in bets.

Football betting dominates all sports betting. That’s despite the fact that the pro football season is relatively short compared to basketball and baseball — only 17 games in the regular season, leading up to

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