The NBA regular season is a marathon for everyone, not just players and coaches, but also bettors and oddsmakers. There are 30 teams and an 82-game regular season, as well as an additional two-month period for the playoffs.
Beating the point spread set by oddsmakers regularly enough to generate a profit is difficult but very rewarding when you call it correctly and come out on top. However, there are methods and factors which can be taken into account to gain an advantage when betting on the NBA and we detail the more important ones below.
What factors should I consider when betting on the NBA? The Factors you should consider when betting on the NBA include; social media, injury reports and the host of websites that encapsulate all the statistics of every match, every squad, every coach and every player in the NBA. These are freely available to all people and should be used as a tool by those who make bets on the NBA. All these statistics allow bettors to make an informed decision no matter what their bet of choice is when placing bets on NBA matchups during the regular season and into the Playoffs.
That’s just a rough guide to point you in the right direction, if you are serious about betting on the NBA, to make money or even simply to impress your friends keep reading as we go into a little more detail on the key things you should consider.
Place your wagers early.
Starting betting on NBA games as soon as the markets open each morning is one of the finest methods to get an advantage. Nothing slips between the cracks in a market as large as the NBA. Injury news, market inefficiencies, and erroneous lines are promptly adjusted as the world’s brightest bettors and betting syndicates attempt to capture the value available in the market before it has dissipated.
As the game approaches, oddsmakers and bettors get more information, thus betting early helps you to benefit from errors in the first lines released by oddsmakers before they are adjusted. Bookmakers modify their lines instantaneously as more news becomes available on the various games.
Examine and Respond to Injury Reports
In NBA betting, the importance of injuries cannot be overstated. In contrast to football, which has 11 players on each side, and baseball, which has nine players, a basketball team only plays five players at a time, which means that one player may have a greater influence on the game than in any other team sport.
While betting early might give you an advantage, it can also leave you in the dark about injury news that comes out during the day. The astute bettors approach the NBA in stages. Wager early in the morning, but make sure you’re accessible in the afternoon to remain up to date on injury news and bet on games where an injury might have a large influence.
It’s typical for elite players to sit out of back-to-back games in the era of load management (in Soccer it occurs when the manager rotates his squad), therefore you need to predict which players will not start based on previous performance, press reports, and betting markets.
NBA Totals Betting: Combined Score
A totals bet is betting on whether the combined final score will be OVER or UNDER a certain amount of points. When looking at play totals, there are many questions to consider:
- Is this a game between a fast-paced squad and a slow-paced team?
- Which side is more likely to force its will on the other in terms of style?
- Is one or both of these teams nearing the conclusion of a long road trip?
- What is the team’s game plan going into the game?
If you have a model (spreadsheet or algorithms), you may compare your line to the market line(Moneyline), but you can also look at both teams’ previous performance to see if you have an advantage. This information can be obtained from one of the many NBA statistical websites that a would-be bettor can find via social media.
Live In-Play Betting
Live Betting is one of the most popular types of betting since it enables sports fans to make a bet after the game has already begun. In-game odds fluctuate and are updated almost instantaneously as the match progresses depending on what’s occurring, and bettors may take advantage of the volatility of a game, set up arbitrage occurrences, and even hedge earlier bets to profit.
The models and algorithms used by sportsbooks to generate live lines are only as good as the information they received, which was not taken into account when setting their odds before the game.
General guidelines for live betting:
- Place your bets during commercial breaks or stoppages.
- Try and profit from incomplete data before the odds are corrected or the arbitrage has been eliminated from the amended odds.
- Determine possessions for live totals and keep updating as the game progresses to try and find instances where you could profit.
- Profit from volatility especially where a game is so fast-paced that the changes in odds are not being processed as efficiently as it should be.
Shopping on the Internet
This is critical in any sport. Have access to several sportsbooks at all times to shop for the best line. Certain bookmakers may set their NBA books to have a spread or total of -120, while others have a spread or total of -110. To break even on -110 bets, you must win 52.38 percent of the time. To make a profit at -120, you must win 54.5 percent of the time. This differential implies that you would have to win more times on certain bookmakers than others just based on their spread.
By checking Action Network’s NBA odds page, you can always discover the best, most up-to-date line for each game. This will enable you to find the best odds for betting, and allow you to make that extra profit from your betting exploits, especially for the NBA.
Keep Track of Your NBA Bets
Tracking your bets — anything from a Point Spread to a Moneyline or a Total Points Scored bet is vital for you to be a successful NBA gambler. Keeping track of your bets, keeping track of your total outlays per week or month, your winning bets, and how much money you have won and lost, is as important as placing your bets.
Ultimately, you want to win more bets than you lose, win more money than you outlay, and make a profit over the long term. The NBA is the world’s premier basketball competition, the best of the best. Betting on it, and consistently winning on the games that you are betting on, enhances the excitement of these games, especially if you have done your homework on the statistics and have called the game correctly. Point Guard Chris Paul once said that nothing he does in an NBA game surprises him. Every move he makes, no matter how improvised or spectacular it looks, has been practiced and rehearsed thousands of times. He studies how defences and offences work and he looks for “market inefficiencies” he can exploit. When you bet, be like the Point God.
