NBA Betting Odds, Spreads & Lines

Of all the professional sports in North America, basketball was the first to really embrace legal sports betting. It’s easy to see why; the flood of basketball bettors following their favorite teams has been a financial windfall for both the NBA and the betting sites, with millions of dollars exchanging hands during every regular season and playoff game.

You can grab a piece of the betting action for yourself. This NBA betting guide will show you how to get your money down, whether it’s on your favorite sports team or one of the top superstars this exciting sport has to offer.

You will learn about how to place a parlay, how to know which is the stronger team and more.

Before you can start making your NBA picks, you need to know how to read the NBA betting lines. Each sportsbook will post their NBA lines well before tip-off (usually the day before), basing their numbers on things like key stats and injury reports; you’ll see the favorite and underdog betting odds, which will tell you the payout potential for both teams, then you’ll choose your type of bet and place your wager.

Online sports betting has led to an explosion in the number of different ways sports bettors can place their wagers. The most popular bet types are as follows:

The most common moneyline odds ask you to bet on which team will win on game days. Using the American odds format, the moneyline favorites will be shown with a negative symbol next to their odds, while the underdog odds for moneyline bets will be shown with a positive symbol.

Totals are well on their way to becoming the most popular form of betting when it comes to "straight" or "single" wagers. All you have to do is pick whether the two teams will combine to score over or under the posted number of points; this is why you’ll often hear the total referred to as the "over/under."

For now, the point spread remains the king of all sports betting. Before game time rolls around, each team will be assigned a spread of a certain number of points; the favorite (again shown with a negative sign) has to win by more than that number in order to "cover" the spread and payout, while the underdog (with the positive sign) can lose by fewer points than that number and still beat the spread.

"Prop" is short for proposition bet, which is a bet on something other than the game outcome. NBA props are typically divided into player props, where you bet on the performance of an individual player, team props, where you bet on team performance, and game props, where you bet on things like whether the final score will be odd or even.

NBA futures deal with larger events where the outcome won’t be decided until later on, like who will win the next championship. Player futures like the next MVP winner are also very popular; you can also wager on things like the draft. You’ll find all these futures bets by checking out the NBA futures odds at your preferred sports betting operators.

You can keep betting on basketball games after the teams tip off by visiting the live game odds at your chosen basketball betting sites. Thanks to the internet, the betting action never stops; odds are refreshed in real-time, showing you the updated potential payout on your favorite teams while the game is in progress.

Professional bettors will spend countless hours studying key players to help inform their choices when making basketball bets. As they say, it’s a hard way to make an easy living, but even casual fans can improve their betting picks and their payout potential by signing up at multiple betting sites; this will allow you to do some comparison shopping and get the best basketball odds for your picks.

Generally speaking, when you place a series of bets at the sportsbook, you will be presented with the option of combining those bets in a parlay; your potential payout will be shown on your bet slip.

Online sports betting sites employ handicappers (aka oddsmakers) who look at the NBA betting market and decide what lines to post, based on game stats, injury reports and so on.

Sports betting operators move their lines up and down in response to the betting action they receive; most try to balance the action on both sides.

That depends on your jurisdiction and your sportsbook, but in general, you have to be at least 18 if you are in the States and using one of our recommended offshore locations for sports betting.

Absolutely – provided you use one of our recommended websites or sports betting apps here at Bookmakers Review. Sportsbooks are like any other financial institution; only do business with trustworthy ones, and you should be fine.