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How to bet on the NBA - Bet on Basketball with Expert Tips

NBA Betting

With games available to bet every night, the NBA is one of the most popular forms of sports betting available in the United States. Whether you want to place a bet on your favorite NBA team or make an NBA bet on a random game on national television, you’ll have plenty of ways to make professional basketball more interesting to you.

If you want to bet on basketball and maximize your chances of success, there are several things you’ll need to keep in mind. In this NBA betting guide, we’ll help you learn how to bet on the NBA by exploring different ways to bet and when to use each one. We’ll also include some strategies for betting on basketball that you can use when you bet on the NBA to give yourself the best chance of making the betting odds work in your favor. We will breakdown the best basketball betting lines, how to shop for the best odds on NBA, and overall how to make smarter NBA bets! For more information on expert NBA picks, click here!

Table of contents

  1. ❓Placing an NBA Bet
  2. 🏀What Kinds of Basketball Bets Exist? Ways to Bet on Basketball
  3. 💡NBA vs College Bets
  4. 📈Optimal Betting Tips and Strategies

How Do You Place an NBA Bet? 

Making an NBA bet works very similarly to other forms of sports betting. As with the NFL, the most common forms of betting are the point spread, the moneyline and a totals bet. You’ll also have plenty of prop bets on different NBA players’ stats or on things to happen during the game.

To place a bet on NBA basketball, here are some betting basics to help you get started.

  1. Visit your favorite online sportsbook and check the basketball odds for the game you’re interested in betting.
  2. Make sure that your location software is working. You’ll only be able to place a bet if the betting site can confirm you’re in a state where you can legally bet on basketball.
  3. Select the wager that you like and decide how much you want to risk.
  4. Before you officially place your bet, double-check the potential amount you’ll win. Make sure the amount is worth the risk.
  5. Sit back and watch the action. Your bet is good to go!

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What Kinds of Basketball Bets Exist? Ways to Bet on Basketball

Making an NBA bet works very similarly to other forms of sports betting. As with the NFL, the most common forms of betting are the point spread, the moneyline and a totals bet. You’ll also have plenty of prop bets on different NBA players’ stats or on things to happen during the game. Whether it's who will win the NBA championship, NBA playoff drama, or your regular in-season NBA player props, wagering on basketball is full of choices. 

Each kind of bet comes with its own strategy. Here’s a breakdown of the bets available to you.

Point Spread betting

Just like with football, a point spread betting line is meant to even out the perceived talent gap between two teams. If the Oklahoma City Thunder are hosting the Portland Trail Blazers, you might see the spread listed at Oklahoma City -11.5. That means that for a bet on the Thunder to win, they’d have to win by more than 11.5 points. If you’re betting on the Blazers, anything better than an 11-point loss wins you money. It’s a popular way to bet because it gives value to every team in the league, making every game worth a look. 

Moneyline / Team to Win

It doesn’t get more simple than this. You’re placing a bet on who’s going to win the game. It doesn’t matter how much they win by, how many points are scored, who did what individually. All that matters is who gets the W at the end of the night. If you backed the winner, you win money; if not, your bet loses.

However, betting on the moneyline comes with a price on the odds. If you’re taking the favored NBA team, you won’t win anywhere near as much as with a spread bet. Using the earlier example, the Thunder might go off at -300 on the moneyline, which means you’d need to bet $300 to win $100 in profit. 

But if you’re willing to take an underdog, it can really pay off. An underdog of +250, for example, would yield $250 in profit off a $100 bet.

Totals

A totals bet is a great way to root for either offense or defense to rule the day. When you’re playing the total, who wins and loses doesn’t matter. All you care about is whether the total number of points scored goes higher or lower than the predetermined total. If you’ve got two teams that love to run and shoot, you can play the over and root for big baskets. If you’ve got a game with a bunch of rebounders, the under can turn an otherwise ugly game into a fun evening.

Quarter/Half Bets

Breaking the game down into a quarter or a half can help you maximize your bankroll. Instead of playing the entire game, you can bet on what’s going to happen in just the first quarter or the first half. It’s kind of a game within a game, and it works well when you get teams that consistently start either quickly or slowly.

If you’ve got a fired-up home team that you don’t think can last for an entire game, you can bet them to lead at halftime. If they fall apart in the second half, you’ve already gotten out with your winnings.

Player Prop Bets

If you’ve got a favorite player, these are the bets for you. Player prop bets let you bet on a player’s statistics, such as their point totals or rebound numbers. You can even go against a player you want to root against by taking them to go under their totals.

Some player props have nothing to do with the full game, such as picking a player to score the first basket. It’s a hard prop to hit, but it can be a lucrative and fun option.

Live Betting

This has become one of the most common ways to bet on the NBA. With live betting, you’re betting on a game that’s already in progress. The lines can swing wildly in an NBA game as teams make runs, so savvy NBA bettors can make their choice on which team will win depending on who’s got the most value at a given moment. In some situations, you might find yourself in a position where you’ll profit if either win, because live betting’s given you the chance to take both teams at plus money. 

As you learn to bet, you’ll get a better feel for the NBA odds and how you can use them for live betting.

Parlay and Teaser Bets

If you’ve got a really good feeling about two or more games, a parlay can help you maximize your potential winnings. A parlay bet combines multiple outcomes into one bet, with a higher payout as a result. The catch is that every outcome in the parlay must be right, or the entire bet fails. It’s high-risk, but high reward when it works.

Teasers are less risky ways to combine two bets into one. In a teaser, you gain extra points for your side, in exchange for lesser odds. For example, if you like the Brooklyn Nets and the New Orleans Pelicans in their games, but think their lines are too high, you can play a four-point teaser and get their lines down to where you’re comfortable. As with parlays, all of your plays in a teaser must succeed to win.

Futures Bets

These are long-term bets on a specific outcome, such as picking a player to win Rookie of the Year or backing a team to win the NBA Finals. These plays can pay big money at the end of the season if your bet wins. However, you have to tie up part of your money for the entire season, so they’re not always a popular play. But if you have the funds, it can be a great move.

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How Does Betting on NBA Differ From College?

Even though it’s the same sport, betting on the NBA comes with a different strategy than a college basketball game. For example, NBA games always allow you to make prop bets on players, while many states prohibit prop bets on college athletes. If you like betting on players to hit their numbers on points, rebounds or another stat, you’ll need to stick to NBA betting.

Another change is the speed of the game. NBA teams don’t vary much in how fast they play the game. The Miami Heat might take a little longer to set up their offense, but with only 24 seconds to shoot, there’s not a lot of difference between them and the Indiana Pacers. At the college level, there’s a world of difference between the speed of Iowa and the speed of Virginia. That can lead to drastic differences in the totals.

NBA teams also play with much more variance than college squads. The Denver Nuggets won the NBA title in 2023, but they also lost at home to the Detroit Pistons, who finished 2023 with the NBA’s worst record. Upsets can happen in college, such as Fairleigh Dickinson’s famous win over Purdue, but they’re much more rare.

Finally, NBA players play three times as many games as college teams. But the season only lasts about six weeks longer. That means star players will sometimes take a game off to get some much-needed rest. Recent rule changes in the NBA have altered this somewhat, but you’ll still see players take a game or two off rather than risk their bodies. No NBA season has ever seen more than 46 players play all 82 games. Conversely, you’ll never see a healthy college player skipping a game for rest.

Optimal Betting Tips and Strategies

With so many games available to bet, it’s critical to understand how to make basketball betting strategies work for you. Here are a few tried-and-true sports betting tips that can give you a strategic advantage over coming in blind.

Get Reliable Information

In this day and age, there’s so much information available that you can find out almost anything you want about any NBA team or player. However, not all of it is trustworthy. Anyone can put out anything they want, which means you need to know what information you can trust and use to your advantage.

The best way to develop a good NBA betting strategy is by following reliable sources. Every team is on social media, so that’s a good place to start for updates. If the Heat put out a post reminding you that Duncan Robinson has scored at least 19 points in each of his past three games against the Charlotte Hornets, you might want to bet on him to have a great scoring night. 

Another great place to find reliable information is by following the media personalities who cover that team every day. If you see a report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Giannis Antentokounmpo has tweaked his leg in practice and might play limited minutes, you can use that to bet against the Bucks before the market has time to react. 

Use the Schedule

Back-to-back nights happen in the NBA. There’s no way around it, even when the NBA tries to limit the number that each team faces. Squeezing 82 games each into a span of 180 days means that it’s just not possible to have a day off between each game (especially with the Lakers and Clippers sharing an arena). So when a back-to-back comes up, make sure to use it to your advantage.

If the Minnesota Timberwolves just played at the Philadelphia 76ers the night before, they might not be as enthused for a matchup against the Washington Wizards. But because the Wizards are a weaker team, the betting markets will still usually give you decent odds on them. Expecting a letdown — especially if the favored team is resting a starter or two — can often pay off with a closer game than expected. 

The Early Bird Gets The Win

In many cases, the earlier you get your bet in, the better off you’ll be. That’s because with online sports betting, the sportsbook sets the market based on its own information and algorithm. However, once professional basketball bettors get a chance to check out each NBA game, the lines can and will move. If a lot of money comes in on one side, the number you liked might be gone before you get a chance to get any value on it.

That’s why it’s a good idea to check your betting options out as early as possible. If you spot something you like early and you think it won’t be there for long, grab it before the sports betting sites have a chance to correct themselves. Alternatively, if you think the pros have it wrong, you can wait until the game gets closer to tip-off to get more value. But that strategy only works if you’re checking the lines early, so even if you decide to wait, it never hurts to check.

Check Out the Playing Styles

Knowing how each team likes to play and what it’s done during the season can really help your strategy. For example, the Los Angeles Lakers can be a great under candidate because they rarely send their opponents to the free throw line. Conversely, the Indiana Pacers shoot well, play fast and commit a lot of fouls, which means their games usually feature a ton of points.

Knowing how teams match up with each other can also pay huge dividends. In 2007, the Dallas Mavericks were seen as one of the favorites to win the NBA title because they went 67-15 in the regular season. But three of those 15 defeats came against the Golden State Warriors, and in the playoffs, the Warriors showed it was no fluke by eliminating the Mavericks in six games. For bettors who paid attention to the matchup, one of the most famous upsets in NBA history turned into a large profit.

Have Fun

Above all, sports betting and NBA betting are supposed to be fun. Winning money is great, but the main reason to bet is to have fun with your betting and try to make plays that you like. If you’re a Chicago Bulls fan and you’ve really got a good feeling that your team’s going to pick up a win at home against Milwaukee, go ahead and make a play on it.

The strategies in this basketball betting guide are a great starting point, but having fun with your bets matters most. If you like a certain bet, it’s going to be much more fun to cheer for it during the game — and even more fun if you happen to win. 

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