Basketball betting may be effective and enjoyable provided you have a basic understanding of the game and online wagering.
We don’t like to blow our own horn – until someone cuts us off on the highway, of course – but we’re basketball betting specialists. In reality, we are specialists in betting on every sport, and we want to share our experience with you via our OKBet betting guide so you can make informed basketball choices while learning how to bet on basketball and win.
Whether you’re headed to the betting market to make a wager on a regular-season game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Memphis Grizzlies, or you want to learn how to bet on the NBA Finals, our online betting lesson has you covered.
What Is the Best Basketball Betting Strategy?
You should get acquainted with the way the odds for NBA games will be presented at the sportsbook before we continue with our discussion on how to wager real money on basketball games. Just so you know, the term “basketball betting site” is more often referred to as “sportsbook.”
Understanding How to Read Basketball Betting Odds
Let’s get down to the fundamentals, and I’ll explain how the odds work in basketball. When expressing betting odds, a plus sign (plus) will always be used to denote the underdog, and a negative sign (minus) will always be used to represent the favorite. Take, for example:
| Team | Odds |
| San Antonio Spurs | -110 |
| Orlando Magic | +110 |
The real odds are shown by the numbers to the left of the plus and minus signs. This is predicated on the assumption that each bettor will wager Php5,800. The juice, also known as the vig, is the Php580 that is collected by the bookmaker on each wager.
You are not required to wager Php5,800. You have the option to wager either Php2,900 or Php1,500, or Php1,566. It is entirely up to you how much of your stake you would want to gamble. If you do not have the financial resources to pay for orthodontic treatment for your children, they may end up with crooked teeth.
After the basketball betting lines have been broken down for you, we will now proceed to break out the basketball betting itself.
Picking a Team to Win Straight up with Moneyline Bets
The moneyline is a kind of bet that requires the bettor to choose a winner, and the bet is also known as a straight-up bet (SU). For instance, if the Toronto Raptors are expected to win their game against the Boston Celtics and they are the favorite, you may place a bet on the Raptors to win the game outright. The probability might be represented something like this:
| Team | Odds |
| Toronto | -260 |
| Boston | +220 |
If you bet Php2,842 on the Raptors and they ended up winning, you would get a payment of Php3,212.04 This means that you would get your initial Php2,842 back, in addition to the Php892.04 that you earned. On the other hand, if you bet Php2,842 and won on the Celtics, you would get a payment of Php7,424. This would include the return of your initial Php2,842 investment in addition to the profit of Php5,104. Using the odds and the amount that you have wagered, our odds calculator will tell you how much money you stand to win.
A wager placed on the underdog, often known as the dog, is seen as a riskier bet due to the fact that oddsmakers, or the individuals who are responsible for setting the lines at online betting sites, believe that the favorite will come out on top. That doesn’t mean you should avoid betting on the underdogs and stick to the favorites, however. As long as you handicap your bets appropriately, you have a chance of making significant profits off of major shocks. Don’t worry, we’ll go through betting tactics in the next section.
Point Spreads: Which Team Is Going to Cover?
When two teams aren’t equally matched, the point spread provides gamblers with an option to choose one team to win over the other. This is similar to the situation that occurs when betting on the NFL. Before the game even begins, the underdog is given a leg up, while the favorite is made to start out on the back foot. The odds might be represented in some way like this:
| Team | Point Spread |
| Golden State Warriors | -17.5 |
| Sacramento Kings | +17.5 |
In this hypothetical situation, the Kings would need to either win the game outright or suffer a loss by a margin of 17 points or less. For the Warriors to come out on top, they will need a victory by a margin of at least 18 points.
When you place a wager of this kind, you are selecting a side that you believe will win despite the fact that they are underdogs. In the context of wagers of this sort, the acronym ATS is often used. This phrase literally means “against the spread.”
Because basketball is such a high-scoring sport, the spread for an NBA game will often be more than five (5) points. This is the case even when the game is a pick’em. There will be occasions in which the spread will not include the decimal (.5), and instead, you will see a complete number.
Applying the same logic to this piece of advice for betting on basketball, if the point spread was 17, instead of 17.5, and the Warriors won the game by precisely 17 points, meaning that the Kings lost by the same amount, it is considered a PUSH. In this scenario, you will get a refund of the money you wagered as if the wager had never taken place.
Combined Score Basketball Betting
When placing a bet on the totals, you are making a wager on whether or not the aggregate final score will be OVER or UNDER a certain amount of points. The following is a rundown of the possible outcomes should the New Orleans Pelicans and Houston Rockets meet in a basketball game:
| Option | Points |
| OVER | 220 |
| UNDER | 220 |
If you place your wager on the OVER, it indicates that you believe the final score will have a point total that is higher than 220. If you place your bet on the UNDER, the total score must be 219 or below for you to be successful in winning your wager. When betting on OVER/UNDER, a PUSH may also occur if the total points scored by both teams equal the exact amount of points predicted by the oddsmakers.
Making Bets While the Game Is Being Played
Basketball betting websites will update their odds in real time as the game progresses. You are able to place bets on individual plays, as well as on things like the next team to score or altering spreads, when you participate in in-play betting. When you come into favorable live odds, you should act immediately to secure them since they won’t last for long. It will do you well to be able to make your selections on live lines as quickly as possible.
Keeping It Light
You may place prop bets while the basketball season is ongoing. In the world of basketball betting, “props,” which is an abbreviation for “proposition,” are bets placed on the occurrence or non-occurrence of certain events or highlights that may or may not have a clear correlation to the final score of the game.
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