Basketball! One of the most popular sports in the USA. Who doesn’t love watching an NBA game and seeing the supreme athletes pull off difficult shots, awesome dunks, and epic defensive plays?
In this guide, we’re looking specifically at how to bet on basketball, as we’ve found that this is becoming one of the most popular types of betting available and people often enjoy it while watching the games. So, if you want to place your first bet, read on as we give you a heap of tips and strategies.
We’ve got guides for things like the fixed odds meaning and other terms, but when looking at how to bet on basketball, it’s important that you understand the common types of bets you can place. We’ve given a summary in the below table:
| Basketball Bet Type | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Moneyline | Who will win a game |
| Points Spread | How many points a team will win or lose by |
| Points Over/Under | Whether the two teams will score more or less the points total |
| Parlays | Multiple moneyline selections combined into one bet |
| Same Game Parlays | Multiple props selections from one game combined into one bet |
| Player props | Bets on individual player stats such as points or assists |
| Team props | Bets on a particular team’s stats such as rebounds or points |
There are more bets than this, but we’ve found that this is what most people stick with when looking at how to bet on basketball and win.
Part of an effective betting on basketball strategy is to do your research. There are multiple factors that go into basketball matches and determine the chance of one team or the other winning. We’ve listed 6 specific things we look for before placing any NBA bet:
You can look at things like the quarter bet explained to improve your basketball betting strategy, but one of the simplest things you can also do is to look at injuries. Player injuries greatly swing the outcome of matches. Also, players just returning from injuries might be on restricted minutes so still might not have as great an impact as usual.
Local rivalries and historical matchups often play a part in how the action of basketball games play out. Some teams simply struggle against particular opponents, while other teams might have a heated rivalry with specific opponents which can cause players to go above and beyond to win.
The NBA regular season is gruelling, with each team playing 82 games. Oftentimes teams are playing anywhere from 2-4 games per week. Scheduling can greatly impact a team’s performance – particularly if they have a long stretch of road games, or if they have back to back games. You’ll usually find that a team performs worse on the second night of a back to back schedule for example.
Whether a team is playing on their homecourt or away actually has a major bearing on the outcome of games in the NBA. Historically, teams tend to have a better home record than away, as their homecourt is where they are most comfortable. Look at which team is at home, and whether they have a disproportionately better home record.
Basketball is a team game, but the outcome of games can be greatly influenced by individual performances from superstars. We recommend looking at the current form of the players who play the most minutes on each team before placing your bets. If a player is having a cold stretch, the actual chances of a team winning might be reduced, for example.
While a single player might be performing awesome, that doesn’t necessarily mean the team he is playing for is too. Don’t just look at player performance in a vacuum. Also consider current team performance. For example, perhaps an NBA team is currently hot and on an awesome winning streak which is meaning they are beating teams that they usually wouldn’t.
We want you to be effective at basketball betting and we’ve used our knowledge and own experiences to give you 5 simple starter tips. These should help you manage your bankroll effectively and take a more analytical approach to NBA betting.
US sportsbooks often have local support for NBA teams depending on the state you are logging in from. For example, if you are an Illinois resident, the sportsbook might have special bets for the Chicago Bulls. It’s worth looking for these special bets and taking advantage of any local support the sportsbook offers.
The 80/20 approach for basketball betting is where 80% of your bets are “sure thing” picks with lower odds, and the other 20% are higher-risk bets with greater odds. The idea is that you offset your small amount of high risk bets with a larger amount of lower risk bets to hopefully at least cover the stake if your high-risk bet loses. For example, you could make 4 outright bets on NBA teams likely to win, and then 1 bet using a parlay combination of those 4 teams for your higher risk bet.
A simple basketball betting strategy you can use is to create a parlay bet for NBA games on a specific day. During the regular season you often have multiple teams playing on any given night. A parlay bet on a single slate of games on a specific day is far easier to predict, research, and manage, compared to a parlay bet for an entire week’s worth of games, for example.
One thing that makes the NBA great to watch is that the results are never set in stone and the underdogs can often cause an upset. We think that more so than any other sport, basketball has the chance for upsets and this means that you have the chance to capitalize on them and potentially pull off awesome bets with high odds. If you think that the odds aren’t as clear cut as they seem to be, and you think the other team has a chance of winning, don’t be afraid to make that bet.
We’ve found that oftentimes people overlook player props as they think they are risky, or they don’t understand how they work. However, we believe that when used right, they can actually be consistent. The key is picking your props carefully in-conjunction with statistical analysis of the players. For example, there is a high chance that Giannis Antetokounpo will get 25+ points and 10+ rebounds on any given night. Similarly, it’s most likely that Steph Curry will typically make at least 3 3pters in a game.
Like prop betting strategy, we don’t think that betting on basketball is perfect. There’s plenty of things you can do wrong, and the nature of the game itself lends to disappointment. This is reflected in the pros and cons we’ve summarized below:
We hope that your head is bursting with info on how to bet on basketball, and that you are ready to give it a try! We believe that out of all the US pro sports, basketball betting is the most exciting – there’s heaps of different bets to place, loads of games throughout the NBA regular season and playoffs, and lots of chances for unexpected outcomes and underdogs turning the odds on their head!
Remember to take on board our tips for NBA betting strategy, and make sure that you do your research and take a deep dive into the games. Look for things like injuries, game schedules, and current performances to make your bets more effective. Most of all, have fun, and don’t be afraid to experiment and try out the different props bets and things like bet builders.
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