Every NBA fan knows just how intense a regular NBA season can be. There are 30 NBA teams and a season consisting of 82 games, as well as a postseason that lasts for two months.
Just like any major league market, determining the result of an NBA game isn’t easy.
Still, it’s even harder to regularly beat the point spread determined by oddsmakers, so you can overcome the juice (or vig) required to make a profit. This is normally 52.38% on -110 bets.
Still, there are ways to get an edge when wagering on the NBA.
Below, you’ll find 8 tips on how to make betting on the NBA possible and how to effectively bet on basketball in general. Let’s get into it!
Make Early Bets
One of the most effective ways to get an edge when making wagers on NBA games is to begin betting the moments the markets open every morning.
So if you live on the East coast, this would mean betting on the markets at around 8-9 am ET.
The NBA is a huge market, and is covered extensively in sports news.
News of injury and any gaps in the lines and markets are quickly corrected as the keenest betting syndicates and bettors snap up the value on NBA sides and totals before the value is lost all together.
Bettors and oddsmakers obtain more data on games as the tip-off approaches, so making bets early lets you take advantage of the errors on the initial lines that are released by oddsmakers before they are amended.
Shop Lines
This is crucial for all sports. You should always be able to access a variety of sportsbooks to shop around for the best line so you can make the most strategic NBA picks.
For example, if a sportsbook has the Denver Nuggets listed at -3.5 for a game, but another has them at -3, then the latter is where you should be placing your bet.
Even a half point can significantly alter your win rate.
The same can also be said for the vig. Some books have a spread or total at -120 while others have it at -110.
To break even on -110 bets, you would need to win 52.38% of your wagers.
Meanwhile, to break even at -120, you would need to win 54.5% of your wagers, which is nearly a 2.12% edge.
Keep An Eye On Injury Reports
In the betting world, injuries within the NBA have a huge impact, as a basketball team only has five players on the court at one time, which means a player injury has a huge impact when compared to injuries in football or baseball.
Although you can get an edge from early bets, you may find yourself unaware of injury news that breaks during the day. Therefore, we recommend taking a ‘shifts’ approach when betting on the NBA.
Make bets early in the morning, but also be prepared to make bets in the afternoon to keep up to date on injury news and be prepared to bet on games that can be significantly impacted by an injury.
Experienced bettors are probably well aware of this tip, but it’s worth discussing for bettors who might not know.
NFL teasers are useful because a football game normally has about 12 possessions.
Teasing a game six points accounts for nearly a single touchdown and gives you sufficient space for every teaser leg to cover the 72.3% threshold required to break even.
Meanwhile, NBA games have about 100 possessions on average so teasing a spread four points is just two possessions, which can be covered in under a minute.
Because of the sheer volume of possessions in your typical basketball game, teasing it is just not worth it.
Make Live Bets
Live betting has become a common type of betting because it lets you place a bet once the game has started already.
Because in-game odds regularly change based on the action of the game, bettors can take advantage of these fluctuating odds, the game’s volatility, establish arbitrage or middling opportunities, and even hedge previous bets in order to make a profit.
The algorithms and models that sports books use to establish live lines are only as good as the data being put into them, and there’s a lot of new data being received once the game starts that naturally was unavailable before.
Let’s take a look at some general live betting rules:
- Make bets during stoppages or commercial breaks.
- Calculate possessions for live totals.
- Take advantage of pricing errors due to bad info.
- Take advantage of volatility. After all, basketball is a game of runs. That’s a cliché, but it’s true!
- Familiarize yourself with rotations.
- Make live bets on injuries.
Focus On Advantages Around Scheduling
While the NBA has worked to decrease the amount of back-to-back games, NBA teams will still play an average of 13.5 back-to-back games, with no-rest games.
Although this makes up fewer than 17% of their 82 games, these are areas bettors can take advantage of.
Unfortunately, if a season has no periods where a team plays a considerable amount of back-to-back games that isn’t something betters can isolate.
This is worth remembering during the season, and you should make a point of fading these teams during these periods where tired legs are likely.
Consider How Many Possessions A Game Will Have
Pace is an important factor when handicapping NBA totals. The amount of possessions in a game can predict how high-scoring a match will be just as much as the efficiency of a team’s offensive strategy.
In the 2021 season, the Washington Wizards ranked 18th in Offensive Rating, but ranked 3rd in points per game (116.6) because they played at the fastest Pace in the league (106.4).
Calculating Pace will give you a good expectation of the amount of possessions in a game.
Below you’ll find Basketball-Reference’s definition of Pace, and their formula for Pace:
Pace – Pace Factor (available since the 1973-74 season in the NBA); the formula is 48 * ((Tm Poss + Opp Poss) / (2 * (Tm MP / 5))). Pace factor is an estimate of the number of possessions per 48 minutes by a team. (Note: 40 minutes is used in the calculation for the WNBA.)
There are a lot of questions to ponder when you want to play totals. For example, is this a game between a slow pace team and a fast pace team? What team is more stylistic?
Are the teams at the end of a string of back-to-back games and perhaps have tired legs? What strategies are going to be employed?
Let’s take a look at Game 5 and Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals between the L.A. Clippers and Phoenix Suns, both games exceeded the closing total, as the Suns played faster and got into their offense faster.
Game 5 had 97.5 possessions, and it flew over the total of 213.5. Meanwhile, the Game 6 total was adjusted to 214.5 and the total also went over in that game.
The Suns had an efficient offense against a Clippers team with tired legs, as the Clippers had played every other day for almost a month.
Other questions to consider include: How efficiently have these offenses been playing recently and how likely is it to slow down? What is the shot quality like?
Are these teams finding open 3-pointers but are not making them? Are they collectively playing above expectations? What type of negative or positive regression can you expect from the offenses?
If there is a model, you can compare your line to the market line, but you can also study the recent play of both teams and decide whether you have an edge.
Keep An Eye On Your NBA Bets
One of the biggest tips we can give you on making profitable NBA bets is to monitor your bets, whether that’s a point spread, moneyline, or a prop bet by using a betting app.
These apps can tell you what your Return On Investment is for every type of bet and it makes recognizing your patters easier so you get a better idea of your strengths and weaknesses.
Keeping an eye on your bets with the aid of an app lets you know what to focus on when placing bets going forward.
Final Thoughts
The NBA season is a full-on and exciting time for the players, the coaches, NBA fans, and bettors alike.
If you’re one of those bettors it can also be an overwhelming and stressful season of sport, and you might not know where to start when it comes to betting on your team.
When is the best time to bet? Should you make live bets or make bets early on?
What factors should you consider when placing bets? It’s easy to get overwhelmed by these questions, but I hope our article has helped you make sense of NBA betting so you can see profits.
A favorite of mine is golf gambling. Such a relaxing game can win you big when you bet on the right people. Plus, betting makes watching it much more fun, too!
If you’re looking for a new hobby, gambling can sound like a risky venture. But it doesn’t have to be. Stick with my knowledge of the business and I’ll help you navigate the tricky waters that are gambling online sites.
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