NBA Betting

NBA Betting – Slam Dunks and Steadfast Bets

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the world’s best-known leagues. Whether you are an amateur in your local school or a staunch supporter of the New York Knicks, the NBA betting season is lucrative not only for players themselves. While your favorites fill up the small screen and steal the limelight from you, you can nip out to the bookies and have yourself a few quick wagers. Care to know how you may become a successful bettor? Keep your eyes peeled for our solid advice.

Or, you can very well remain in the comfort of your own living room enjoying cutting-edge technologies enabling you to bet on a beloved team. And if you need to jog your memory and have a quick crash course on how to bet on NBA we will definitely be happy to take you by the hand and initiate you in the most subtle and amusing aspects of the activities. Bet on what you will, we will help you learn about against the spread, totals and under, and outright predictions.

We cover them all and offer the necessary expertise that will shape you from a rookie into a professional.

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How to Bet on the NBA

Are you looking for an edge on your bets or do you simply want to wrap your head around the whole institution of sports betting? It makes no odds to us, because we always choose to be thorough instead! The basics of any type of betting are pretty much overlapping, but don’t chalk this to an attempt on our part to lump all the knowledge together.

Quite the opposite. What you need to understand is that the NBA is comprised of multiple teams that are well-funded and vying for the trophy, which in turn, brings them more monetary rewards, not to mention partnerships in the long-term. You can turn your love for betting into a steadfast income, albeit the industry does tend to be a top heavy.

However, if you apply yourself, calling the right outcome of matches can soon become your stomping ground. What we advise our gamers to first do is to commit to studying the teams – see how they perform as a team and individually. Look into their past games and be prepared to alter your wagers if you doubt that the team is likely to continue with a winning streak. In other words, glean data and analyze it.

Data, Data, Data

Naturally, collecting information on your own, especially as a novice bettor, could be rather taxing. But instead of focusing on complicated models, you can just as easily single pick those teams that are likely to perform much better. Analysts will often posit a likely scenario where certain teams will be the underdogs and they will progress to the later stages of the competition.
Trawling data need not only be done through mathematical algorithms. In fact, nothing suggests as much. Surely, you can crunch the numbers and check how many times a team has defeated another, take the home team advantage into account and generally gauge the standing of the squad, but then again – you can rely on professional coverage.

If you find yourself in need of reading quality analysis, most, if not all mainstream media outlets invite columnists of different and sometimes scientific backgrounds, who give you enough hard evidence as to why you should bet on the Chicago Bulls or the Los Angeles Lakes.

Reading NBA Odds and Lines

For the purposes of a thorough analysis, we ought to say that the odds out there will fluctuate between decimal, fraction, and American. All in all, depending on the place of the world you are playing from, you will have a preferred type, such as American for North America and fraction for the United Kingdom, for example.

And even if you find yourself squinting at odds you can’t quite put your finger on, rest assured that you will be able to quickly amend this by finding an odds adjuster in the bookmaker itself.

Speaking of the hallowed odds, you will have to do some digging around about the bookmaker. The ones we recommend usually have the most competitive NBA betting odds available, but even then, it wouldn’t hurt to compare all bookies from the table before arriving at a final decision.

Two of the main types of wagers you will have to always consider are betting against the spread and over/under betting. Of the two, we tend to prefer the over/under type, as it’s rather easier to explain, albeit spread bets are not as complicated as their name may suggest.

Comparing the Odds – Shop Around

One of the absolute pluses of having all websites researched for you beforehand is that you can focus on the odds. All you have to do is kickback in your armchair and leisurely parse the numbers. You will be easy to spot some slight discrepancies across bookies.

One operator would give a slightly better edge to a team that is more likely to win. These differences will allow you to explore the overall landscape better and add value to your forays. It’s the subtle difference that provide you with the needed edge to even out what the house charges on individual wagers and boost your NBA betting chances of turning a modest bankroll into steadfast riches.

Different Types of Wagers

Before we get to the actual types of wagers, let’s elaborate on the concepts we broached a little while back. Spread betting is of course the first one we want to explain. Let’s make a hypothetical to help us solve this conundrum. Boston is playing Los Angeles, and the spread looks like this:

Boston +5
Los Angeles -5 (chalk)

In the above representation of the spread bets, Boston are the team that the bookie thinks are most likely to lose. They are given a 5-point advantage, meaning that if you wager on them and Los Angeles defeats Boston 95-92, the spread would have been covered with Boston losing with fewer than 5 points.

Conversely, if Los Angeles finish at 95-92 in their favor, then the spread has not been covered. Los Angeles didn’t win with a difference greater than the spread and therefore your bet is forfeited.

If you have your odds converted in moneyline, then you are also likely to see (-100) or (+100) in a bracket next to the bet you are wagering on. Bear in mind that the bracket values change, i.e. 100 is not the only value you can have. Moneyline are calculated quite simply in fact. You stake $100 on -110 to win. The opposite is also true.

With this in mind:Los Angeles -5 (-110) means that you are risking $110 to win $100 on the possible outcome that Los Angeles will win with a number greater than 5 points spread difference. Confused? Don’t be!

You can always convert the odds in decimal, which while not native to the United States, for example, could be a breeze to grasp! In essence, you will have odds such as 1.50, 3.25, 2.16, which basically signify your potential return from a wager. Let’s return to our Los Angeles conundrum.

Los Angeles are given 1.50 versus 2.50 for Boston. LA are clearly the possible winners. Every $1 you stake on LA, will yield $1.50 on top of your wager, i.e. $1.50, making the total amount you receive $2.50.

A Quick Look at the Matches and Futures

bet365-screenshot-02 NBA Table

A screenshot of bet365’s sportsbook

Some of the more exotic bets also include futures and futures can be subdivided into all sorts of bets thereafter. You can bet on the conference winner, division champs or outright winners. If you go back a step, you will see that match bets can also be rather intriguing to begin with.

Bet365 Sportsbook Example

A screenshot of bet365’s sportsbook

With particular matches, you can either choose a winner or you can go straight for the specific wagers, as in 1st quarter winner and 1st or 2nd half leader. It’s not always easy to call these bets, but it’s immensely fun. Not to mention that you can see other bets introduced.

Finding the Best NBA Betting Sites

Curating the many excellent options on the market is of course quite the tempting offer. In general, there are two ways to approach the subject and neither promises to leave you bored. First, you can sift through the home selection of websites we have put together for you. What does this mean?

The NBA betting sites you will find on our pages have been tested and examined in detail. They are more likely to hold license or in the very least, have the long and established reputation of market leaders. We check if licenses are renewed and if there have been past scraps with either authorities or customers.

Conversely, you may carry out your own research, which means that you will be able to examine an NBA bookie on your own. If you decide to take this path, we recommend that you make a checklist:

  • Check their reputation
  • See if they have a license
  • Look into the available markets
  • Check the public domain for litigation against the bookmaker

A well-considerate way to pick your bookmaker may be to choose a mix of both suggestions. If you are not in the mood of looking for bookies, we promise you a crop of operators who have proven themselves. Having in mind what the important aspects of a good bookie are, you can quickly check the bookmaker and decide whether they are indeed worth your while.

Variety is also another incremental part of the overall success of your betting forays. By having a rich selection of bets, you can in fact benefit from any insightful piece of seemingly arcane knowledge! Not all places where you frequent for your betting needs will necessarily offer you a chance to do that, but then again you need not be dispirited.

Each bookmaker has its own unique offers well worth exploring. If you feel that the NBA market is too saturated or not nearly well-covered enough, you can always pack up and move to the next bookie. One particularly useful aspect of our recommended websites is the fact that we always check the NBA markets and only list them as reliable and interesting places if they indeed are.

Mobile Compatible – A Flick on the Go

An equally important trait of a successful bookmaker is how accessible it is. Should you just rely on your desktop computers? We hardly think so! A good bookie will be completely compatible with any portable gizmo you may have secreted about your person. Need to go through your table and check your bets – done deal! Feel like a mobile phone is by far the most useful way to do this – that’s equally exciting and you can benefit without a wasting time.

NBA Betting Made Simple

And so, we have come to the end of the road. Our recommendations on how to pick the best bookie or bet are derived from our own experience and appreciation for both NBA betting and the game itself. We have been dedicated industry observers for good many years now and know how to spot a winning wager in the heat of the moment.

If you are looking for a foothold in the segment yourself, we recommend to bookmark our review and return to it when you feel the need to swat up on your knowledge about the game! For anything else, stay tuned with our excellent selection of betting insights!