Basketball Introduction and Basic Rules

As a fast-paced end-to-end game, basketball offers bettors an exciting way to try and make a profit. To help those who want to learn how to bet on basketball get started, we'll explain a few basic bet types that are vital to basketball betting. Continue reading to find out more.

Money Line basketball betting

Money Line bets are the most common and simplest for a bettor to understand. This form of basketball betting is simply placing money on a certain team to win the game. For example, look at these moneyline odds for the Boston Celtics at the Utah Jazz:

Boston Celtics: 3.440

Utah Jazz: 1.364

In this example, the Utah Jazz (1.364) are the favorites to beat the Celtics (3.440) at home (in American odds, their respective odds would be -275 and +244). If you staked £10 on the Jazz and they won, you would get a return of £13.64 – which includes your £10 stake. The profit would be £3.64. However, if the Celtics had won, you would have won nothing and lost your £10.

On the other hand, if you had bet on the Celtics and they had won, your return would have been £34.40 including your initial £10 stake, which would have given you a profit of £24.40.

Handicap basketball betting

Once you understand how to bet on basketball using the Money Line, betting on the handicap can become a valuable tool when one team is heavily favored over their opponents. With Handicap basketball betting, to counter the perceived bias in ability, bookmakers offer a handicap to level the playing field.

The handicap number (displayed as either + or – a value, such as +7.5 points) is factored into the final score to determine the game’s outcome for the bet. This means that the handicap result is sometimes different from the actual result. For example, look at these two handicap bets:

Golden State Warriors (+7.5): 2.050

Indiana Pacers (-7.5): 1.862

If the Pacers won the game (100–96), bets on their handicap would lose. This is because, for this bet, they started the game with -7.5 points, and therefore we have to subtract 7.5 from their final score. This makes the match outcome 92.5–96 in the Warriors’ favor.

If the Pacers won 104-96, the adjusted handicap result is 96.5-96, which means the Pacers still win. This is referred to as “covering the handicap”.

Totals basketball betting

Totals betting (also known as Over/Under) is a bet on whether the combined points scored in a game will be over or under a set number. For example, look at the total odds for the Sacramento Kings at the Miami Heat below:

Over 210.5: 1.962

Under 210.5: 2.110

If you bet £10 on the game to be over 210.5 points, and the result was 116-98 (an aggregate total of 214 points), you would make a return of £19.62 (£9.62 profit). If you had backed the total score as under 210.5 with odds of 2.110, you would have lost the bet.

Despite this article outlining the basic forms of basketball betting and providing a solid understanding of how to bet on basketball, there are more advanced bet types that can be explored with your newfound knowledge.

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