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How to Bet on the NBA – NBA Betting Strategies
How to Bet on the NBA
The NFL might be king in the US in terms of fan hood, but the NBA isn’t far behind while also having a much wider international audience. Because of this popularity, betting on the NBA has also become increasingly popular. Now that mobile sports betting has become legal in more and more states, it has also become much easier to bet on the NBA.
To start, there are 3 main markets when betting on the NBA. Let’s get into them.
NBA Points Spread
When you bet on a point spread you are no longer betting on who you think is going to win the game, but instead how much a team is going to win or lose by. So, instead of a team needing to win the game straight up, if you bet on the spread you need the favorite to win by a certain number of points or more in order to win that bet. Conversely, if you are betting on an underdog’s point spread, they no longer need to win the game straight up in order to win your bet- they can either win, or lose by less than the spread amount.
NBA Moneyline
Another of the main markets to bet on in the NBA is betting on a team’s moneyline. This is the most simple concept to understand in sports betting: all you are doing is betting on who you think is going to win the game. It doesn’t matter how they win – how many points they score, if it takes 9 overtimes, none of that matters – just that the team you bet on wins the game. You can bet on either the favorite or the underdog, with the payouts being different depending who you decide to bet on.
NBA Total Points
Betting on the total, or also called the over/under, of an NBA game has also become popular as betting on the NBA grows. When you bet on the total, you are betting on the number of points scored in the game, combined between both teams. In a totals bet you are betting on that score being over or under the set amount. Bettors love betting on the total because it is a way they can get skin in the game without needing to back a specific team. Unsure of who is going to win or even cover the spread? No problem! Let’s bet on the total instead.
Now that we have covered the 3 main markets, the beauty of betting on the NBA is that the bets don’t stop there! There are also prop bets – both player props and game props, that sports bettors can place wagers on. Let’s get into them now.
NBA Player Props
Thanks to the rise of fantasy sports and daily fantasy, NBA player props are becoming a hot commodity to NBA bettors. Another reason is the sheer number of stats that are available to bet on. Just look at all these stats! This screenshot below doesn’t cover everything, either. If there is a counted stat in the NBA, then you can bet on it as a player prop.
A player prop is similar to a total bet in which you are mostly betting on an over or under, but in this case you are betting on a player to go over or under their total on a specific stat. So, NBA bettors love betting on player props because it is a way to back their favorite players as opposed to betting on their team as a whole.
NBA Game Props
Another type of prop bet that is available to sports bettors are game props. Game prop bets provide more options so an NBA bettor can get skin in the game without betting on the direct result of the game.
One of the more common game props to bet are team totals. This game prop is similar to the game total in that you are betting an over or under, but instead of betting on the combined point total of both teams, you are instead just betting on one team to go over or under their point total.
NBA Live Betting
Another way a sports bettor can bet on the NBA is to do it during live NBA games. This means that a game can be actively going on, and a sports bettor is still able to get some bets in. Unable to get your bet in before the game started? No problem! Let’s bet it live, during the action.
Live betting can be fun because you can be watching the game and decide that you have a feeling of how the outcome of the game will go, and be able to act on that feeling. What live bets you are able to place depends on the sportsbook itself. Almost every book will offer the main markets live (spread, moneyline, total) but some might not offer not much more than that, while other books even offer live player props.
NBA Futures
The last way one can bet on the NBA is through a futures bet. A future is a bet that is not involved in a specific game at all, but instead on an event that will occur in the future – normally at the end of the season.
Popular futures bets include: MVP, NBA champion, and conference champion. Futures can be fun to bet on because they almost always have high payouts, and it is incredibly satisfying when you are able to cash a futures bet. Speaking of betting on the NBA champion, let’s learn a little more about how teams can get there.
How do the NBA Playoffs work?
There are 30 teams in the NBA total, 15 in the Eastern Conference and 15 in the Western Conference. The top 8 teams in terms of record from each conference make the playoffs. So, that makes 16 total playoff teams.
There are 4 total rounds of playoff basketball, with the format listed below.
Round 1:
- 1 seed hosts the 8 seed
- 2 seed hosts the 7 seed
- 3 seed hosts the 6 seed
- 4 seed hosts the 5 seed
Round 2: Conference Semifinals
- Winner of the 1/8 matchup vs the winner of the 4/5 matchup
- Winner of the 2/7 matchup vs winner of the 3/6 matchup
Round 3: Conference Finals
- Winner of the previous rounds play each other
Round 4: NBA Finals
- The two conference winners matchup in the NBA finals.
The NBA has each matchup decided in a 7 game series. This means that the two teams play in a best of 7 series, so whoever wins 4 games first wins the series.
The team that has the higher seed gets to be the home team of the series, and series are played in the 2–2–1–1–1 format, meaning the team with home-court advantage hosts games 1, 2, 5, and 7, while the other team hosts games 3, 4, and 6.
NBA Betting Strategies
Now that we know how to bet on the NBA, the more important question is how to make money betting on the NBA. This next section will detail profitable NBA betting strategies to follow.
Check the NBA Injury Reports
One specific scenario in which a sports bettor is able to gain an advantage over the books is reacting quickly to injury news and reports. Injuries have a much, much bigger impact on NBA sports betting compared to other sports because there are only 5 players on the court at one time, compared to 11 in football or 9 in baseball.
It can be very profitable if you are able to hop on a line or player prop once a player is announced as out. Joel Embiid out tonight due to load management? Seems like a perfect time to fade the Sixers and also take some player prop overs for whoever is going to start in his place at center.
Schedule Advantages in the NBA
The NBA has gotten smarter and smarter when it comes to giving teams notable scheduling advantages and disadvantages, but they have been unable to completely take away back-to-backs. In the 2021-2022 season, NBA teams will average 13.5 back-to-back games this season. This means that teams will play 13 or 14 games on consecutive nights with no days of rest in between, which makes them an option to fade because they will presumably have tired legs.
Another NBA betting system when it comes to a schedule disadvantage is fading a teams first home game back after four straight away games. This is a system that has been tracked for the past 3 seasons, and betting against the home team 1st quarter, 1st half, and full game spread has won 56%, 63%, and 58% of the time the past 3 seasons.
When to Bet Spread vs Moneyline on NBA Games
Despite moneyline betting being the easiest to conceptualize, betting against the spread is actually more common in NBA games. The reason for this is because of the risk/reward payout associated with betting a moneyline vs betting a spread. Let’s look at that same Sixers/Knicks game from above.
As we can see, the Sixers are -650 moneyline. This means that a bettor would need to risk $650 in order to profit $100. The Sixers might still win this game and you would profit that $100, but you would need to win this bet over 85% of the time in order to consistently profit. Unfortunately, upsets do happen and there is no system that will win that often.
One scenario in which it can be profitable to bet on a heavy favorites moneyline would be to parlay them together. Parlays are fun because you can add a bunch of different bets, or legs, to a parlay for a sizable payout. Parlays are when a bettor ties multiple bets together to boost odds for a higher payout. The risk is if even one of those legs loses then the entire parlay loses.
So, because you can combine multiple selections into one wager, betting on parlays can be a way for NBA bettors to back multiple heavy favorites moneyline for increased odds and reduced juice.
Conversely, we also see that the Sixers are 10.5 point favorites at -110 odds. If I think the Sixers will cover that spread, I would only need to risk $110 to win $100, so I would need this bet to win roughly 52.5% of the time in order to profit. That is a much easier task. This is why NBA bettors more often bet the spread as opposed to moneyline when they want to back the favorite.
It is a different story when backing the underdog, though. In this same game, a bettor would only need to risk $100 in order to profit $450, and they would only need this bet to win less than 20% of the time in order to be profitable over time. Because of how many games are played in an NBA season, there are consistently upsets on a nightly basis. Profitable NBA bettors are able to identify which underdogs they think have a chance of an upset, and will bet their moneyline as opposed to a spread.
With all this said, this does not mean you can bet every single favorite spread and every underdog moneyline and be able to make a profit. As always, everything must be done in moderation, and profitable sports bettors are able to identify specific games and lines they like and that have Positive Expected Value in order to be a profitable NBA bettor.
How to Bet NBA Totals
The easiest indicator of whether an NBA game is going to go over or under the total is pace. This stat is more of a predictor than offensive or defensive net rating, and it can be found either on the NBA stats page, or on Basketball Reference. Essentially, the definition of pace is the projected number of possessions per 48 minutes by each team.
There are teams such as the legendary “7 seconds or less” Suns that loved to run up and down the floor and consistently led the league in pace, or more recently the Russell Westbrook led Wizards in 2020-2021 that had a mediocre offensive rating but was top 3 in points per game, and that was all because of pace.
So, when identifying whether a total is going over or under, it is important to look at each team’s pace metric as well as any scheduling advantages to determine whether a point total is too high or too low.
Live NBA Betting Tips
As mentioned previously, betting on a live game can be fun because it allows you to place a bet after a game has already begun. Since the odds while a game is going on change rapidly based on how the game is going, it is easy for NBA bettors to take advantage of the frequently changing odds. There are a couple rules involved with live betting, though.
It is generally easier to bet during commercial breaks or stoppages (end of quarter/first half) as opposed to when game action is currently going on. You do need to move quickly when live betting though, but if you are able to move fast you can capitalize on pricing mistakes by a sportsbook if they haven’t been able to update their odds fast enough.
It is also important to capitalize on in-game injuries. If you are watching a game and see that a star player has been ruled out, it can be incredibly profitable to bet against that team before sportsbooks have been able to change the odds.
NBA Line Shopping
This is important for every sport, but especially for the NBA where there are so many different lines and props you can bet on. The Sixers spread above is listed at -10.5, but let’s say you looked at every sportsbook in your state and you found them at -10 on DraftKings. That bet should be placed on DraftKings. A half point might not seem like a lot at the time, but gaining a half point for every NBA bet placed can be the difference between profiting or not.
Using OddsJam, you can always find the best NBA lines as well as the most updated lines on the OddsJam NBA odds page.
Track Your Bets
This one is obvious, but another important thing a sports bettor can do is just keep track of their bets. OddsJam offers a bet tracker completely free of charge, and it is one of the most useful things you can do.
Tracking your bets can help you stay disciplined with your system if you have a bad night or couple days, or it can help identify pitfalls in your strategy that you might need to update. Either way, you need to keep track of your bets so you know whether you are profitable or not, and take the next steps from there.
Profitable NBA Betting Systems
We have gone over NBA strategies, but there are also NBA betting systems that you can follow to help increase your chances of profiting while betting on the NBA that we will detail below.
Fade Home Team After 4+ Straight Away Games
I mentioned this one earlier, but one profitable NBA system is to fade a home team after they’ve played four or more away games straight. NBA players have been asked what game is the hardest to play and they always say it is the first home game back from a long road trip. Going back the last 3 seasons, this system has won 56%, 63%, and 58% of the time.
Back Losing Team in 2nd of Two Game Series
One thing that the NBA has recently started to do in terms of scheduling is schedule a two game mini-series between two NBA teams where the same two teams play each other in consecutive games. Sometimes they are in back-to-back games, or sometimes they have a day of rest in between, but either way it can be profitable to back the team that previously lost. Last season, the team that lost the first game covered the spread in the next game at roughly a 65% rate.
Back Underdog Moneylines 1st Week of the Season
This system is only profitable the first week or two of a new season, but when a season first starts sportsbooks don’t have enough data to accurately price moneylines. So, in this case it can be incredibly profitable to straight up bet the moneyline of each underdog to begin a season.
Taking the 2021-2022 season for example, on opening night the Warriors were underdogs against the Lakers in LA and won. Eventually, as the season went on the sportsbook learned that the Warriors were significantly better than the Lakers, but on opening night that was deemed an upset. Situations like this happen frequently in the first couple weeks of a new season, and because all these bets are going to be for plus money you don’t need to win 50% of the time in order to profit.
Fade the Public
This is another system that applies to almost any sport, but consistently fading the public is a profitable way to bet on the NBA. Generally, if the public is all over a specific spread or total, that means the number has been bet up too high compared to what it should be. Taking advantage and going against the grain really is that simple in terms of being able to profit.
Also, check out how to bet on college basketball.
Where to Bet on the NBA
Most importantly, in order to bet on the NBA you need to be signed up for sportsbooks to be able to actually place some bets! A list of our favorite sportsbooks are below: