In terms of primarily American sports, there are few more interesting to place a wager on than basketball. Basketball, which began in the late 19th century in Massachusetts, is contested by two teams of five players competing to score more baskets than the other. Two points are awarded for most scores, although if a player manages to net from distance they are awarded three, and when given a free throw for a foul, they are given two opportunities worth one point each. The most famous tournament in the sport if the American NBA (National Basketball Association), although there are a number of professional leagues around the world that draw large viewership. The NBA is composed of 30 teams (one of whom is based in Canada) split into the Eastern and Western Conferences. It is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States.
Teams
The Eastern conference is classified into the following divisions:
Central division with Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Milwaukee Bucks.
Atlantic division with Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors teams, and Philadelphia 76ers.
Southeast division with Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Charlotte Hornets, and Washington Wizards.
The Western conference is classified into the following divisions:
Pacific division with Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Clippers, and Sacramento Kings.
Southwest division with Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, New Orleans Pelicans, Memphis Grizzlies, and San Antonio Spurs.
Northwest division with Denver Nuggets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Utah Jazz
Here at NetBet, we don’t just offer odds on the NBA. We have markets for the EuroLeague, French League, Australian NBL, Chinese & Japanese leagues and national leagues around Europe in England, the Czech Republic, Poland, Finland, France, Sweden, Turkey, Lithuania, Russia, Georgia and Latvia among others.
Here are some markets we offer over on the NetBet Basketball page:
Spread Betting
There are pretty much daily matches throughout the seven month period, so there are lots of different opportunities to bet. Unlike a lot of other team sports on NetBet, match bets are in fact not the most popular market in basketball. Spread, or ‘line’ betting is actually the most popular form of betting on this particular sport. It is, in essence, what in football and rugby is called handicap betting. Here on NetBet, you see scores listed like the following: Brooklyn Nets -5.5 Vs New York Knicks +5.5. This means that if you bet on the Nets to ‘beat the spread’ at MSG, they must win by more than 5.5 points, which pretty much means that their winning margin must be 6 points or greater. However if you bet on the Knicks to cover the spread, they have to win the game outright or lose by a maximum of 5 points.
Moneyline Betting
This one is basically just match betting like football, where you answer who you think will win, or if you think there’ll be a draw. It’s the easiest bet you can make, but for that reason odds aren’t going to be very wide and the money you can make without risking a big bet is not great. One thing to note is that match bets are for the four quarters of a game, so if it goes to overtime and the team you picked to win ends up winning, you won’t be paid out on the bet. You have to be very careful to check form guides, home court advantages, and grudges between teams before betting, we wouldn’t recommend just backing the Lakers because you know that LeBron is on the team.
Betting On Basketball Totals
Like with all other sports, people love to bet on the total points scored in a game. Depending on the league or tournament, there will be a big differential in the number of points scored game by game. In the NBA, you’re generally looking at point totals of around 180 to 220 points, with the average in the mid 190 point range. In college basketball like March Madness, or on the European circuit, you can expect to see point totals in the range of 120 to 160 points.
You must try to not pay any attention to a team’s short term averages, because this is not going to help you much. What you want to be looking at is how often a team’s game have gone over or under a given points total. For example, if the total listed for an upcoming Los Angeles Lakers game is 185 points before overtime, you should check the record of how many times recent games including the team have gone over or under that total. You should also check out recent meetings between the two teams. This will give you a good indication of what you might expect to see in the game.
Over/Under Bet
Over/Under betting is pretty straightforward, which makes it attractive to bet on. In this case, a bookmaker sets a line on what they believe will be the total combined number of points scored in a NBA game, with a 50% chance that the game will see the total number be bigger than that and the same for it being smaller or the same. For example, if you bet on Over 196.5 points, we need the total number of points scored in the game to be at the very least 197. Meanwhile, if we had bet on Under 196.5 points, we need the combined number of points to be at the very most 196 points.
