How do I bet on Basketball?

When we say basketball we’re not solely talking about NBA except, we are. We cannot say betting on basketball it’s exclusively on NBA teams but we can say (without fear of being wrong) they capture over 90% of the wages.

Having said that; it would not come as a surprise that almost every online sportsbook tries to provide plenty of lucrative NBA betting opportunities to its extremely passionate fans.

As a result, NBA enthusiasts are free to take advantage of some of the best odds and promotions available in the industry these days. The goal of this short guide is to provide you with some basic information on how the popular NBA wager types can make those odds work in your favor.

We will base this guide on the most popular betting ways on the net so you can easily understand how a gambler pro does it.

  1. Money Line

The Money Line Bets are also known as straight bets because they’re the most basic type of NBA wagers. When you place a straight bet, you just have to predict which team will win the match. Money Lines Betting use $100 as the basis for calculating the potential returns on your investment. Negative lines indicate the favorite and are always marked by a minus sign (-), which indicates that you have to wager $100 to win the money listed by the site. On the contrary, positive lines are marked with a plus sign (+) and give you a shot at winning a larger sum by placing $100 at risk.

Let´s see how it goes in the next example:

  • Boston Celtics: -230
  • Houston Rockets: +170

In this scenario Boston Celtics are a strong favorite, so you’d have to invest $230 for a chance to win $100. And, if your bet was lower, the potential payout would also be scaled down: for example, if you wagered $20, your winnings would total $46. Betting on Houston Rockets would involve more risk, giving you the chance to win $170 for every $100 you bet.

  1. Point Spread

Betting against the Point Spread is a little different from placing a straight wager. Here, the favorites are handicapped by the sportsbook in order to persuade more people to wager on the underdogs. When you bet on the favorites against the spread, you wager that your team will find a way to beat the other team by a pre-determined number of points.

For example, if the spread is set at +3.5 / -3.5, your team will have to win by 4 points or more in order to win the bet. In opposition, if you bet for the underdogs, you may receive a payout even if your team lost by 3 points or less.

  1. Over / Under

The Over / Under wagers are totally different from betting against the Point Spread or the Money Line because you do not have to predict the winner of the match. Instead, you have to guess if the combined score of both teams will be higher or lower than the total set by the sportsbook.

Let’s say, as an example; the total is set at 150 by the sportsbook so, winning an Over bet would involve both teams have to score 151 points or more while winning an Under bet would require the combined score of the match to be equal to 149 or less.

  1. Parlay

Parlays are commonly referred to as accumulators or multipliers. This due to they allow you to combine several simple wagers into a huge combination bet. Placing a parlay means that the potential return on your investment will be extensively higher than if you place single bets separately, but you must cover all of your selections in order to receive a payout. Losing on a single selection will result in losing the entire parlay.

  1. Futures

The abovementioned wagers involve you to predict the result of specific NBA matches. Still, most online sportsbooks provide you with an opportunity to wager on the general result of the entire season. Bet this way oblige you to guess which team will win the NBA Championship or who will be the next divisional champions but in the end, they all require you to put your money on the table before the season starts.

As you’d expect, the odds offered on NBA Futures are incredibly high, particularly if you have no doubts about wagering on one of the underdogs. However, you must always keep in mind that betting on NBA Futures tends to tie up your sports betting funds for prolonged periods of time, so you should be very careful not to wager too much or you might end up not having money to pay for.

  1. Proposition

To define the Proposition bets could be as easy as letting you know that they simply are bets that don’t fit into any of the categories listed above. This betting way will allow you to put your money on who will be the first player to score or whether a particular star player will be able to score a particular number of points throughout the entire match since it’s as flexible as it is fickle.