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The NBA season is an excellent time of year for handicappers. Basketball season attracts the casual bettors and their piles of line-moving cash and reactionary, fade-able picks to create the ideal situation if you’re paying attention! This article is intended to adjust how you think about making picks, hammer home the importance of managing your bankroll correctly, and set you up for a lucrative future of betting on NBA basketball.
If there’s anything you should take away from this article, it’s just how much of the handicapping process is not about the picks. Casual sports gamblers will get a hunch about a game or decide they want to put some action on a matchup and blindly go place their wager without a single thought given to long-term staking plans or implied probability. Sure, it takes a little less work than our way, but your chances of sustained success are nil.
Like most things, sports betting is just a numbers game.
That’s the most critical question in sports betting and the key to all of your future success. Once you think in terms of that question, the only thing more important is figuring out how to determine the real probability of various outcomes taking place accurately.
The top handicappers in the world use advanced analytics and simulations based on sophisticated statistical models to help them decide how likely it is for one team to triumph over another in any given contest. But such a dedicated, time-consuming approach is not feasible for the majority of us, whether it’s because we don’t have the time or the intelligence. So, what is a person to do if they want to find success betting on the NBA but without having to get an analytics degree from MIT to do so?
That’s what we’re hoping to answer for you. By combining disciplined staking plans, value-based betting, and proven betting systems, you can drastically improve the profitability of your NBA betting without dedicating your entire life to the task. Once you’ve completed this article, you should have the blueprint from which to model the rest of your handicapping career. If basketball season wasn’t already your favorite time of year, it will be soon!
Get the Money Right First
On the surface, this is going to seem like a really crazy thing to say, but when it comes to betting on the NBA and other sports, people don’t think enough about money. Sure, they think about how much money they’re going to throw down on the bet and pray that their wager will result in earning some extra cash, but that’s not what we’re talking about.
When we say we want you thinking about money, we’re talking about before you’re at the sportsbook or examining the odds online. We’re even talking about before the season begins. Before you place a single bet, open an account with an online sportsbook, or try to predict who will win what, you’ve got to do some honest accounting and create your gambling bankroll.
Create a Bankroll
Your bankroll is the amount of money that you plan to set aside exclusively to fund your gambling. You must honestly look at your finances and only allow yourself an amount that you can afford to lose without it causing any disruption or strife in your life. You also need to determine how long you would like the money to last and understand that if it runs out before the date you set, you will not pull funds from other areas or keep gambling regardless.
It may seem a little ridiculous, but the truth is that gambling is a vice and can lead to some very destructive behaviors if not treated responsibly.
Important:Organizing your betting finances and creating a disciplined plan before you experience the rush from your first miracle backdoor will ensure you’re entering this hobby with a clear mind.
Beyond preventing your financial ruin, proper bankroll management can also play a role in you becoming a profitable handicapper long-term. Once we tackle the concept of value and how to shape all of your bets around it, you’ll see how these two steps work together to ensure eventual success by merely making sports betting a simple math problem. But first, for the math problem to work, you’ll have to decide how you want to divide up this bankroll.
Apply a Staking Plan
Being a responsible gambler by having a dedicated bank for betting is a significant first step, but on its own, it’s pretty useless. If the money is going to last for the entirety of the duration you plan for it, and you’re going to earn money by comparing probabilities, you’ll need to create a staking plan. A staking plan is a system you use to decide how much to risk per bet and how often you will be betting.
There are numerous approaches to staking plans, some of which are incredibly complex. For today, we’re just going to keep things simple and use a fixed staking plan. This means we’re either going to divide the bankroll up into equal pieces and bet the exact same flat amount for each wager or set a fixed percentage of our bankroll per bet, which will allow us to gamble a bit more when the bankroll is growing and a bit less when it’s down.
Depending on the size of your bank and how many bets you’re planning to get out of it, the percentage you choose may vary. Staking plans that risk 2.5% – 5% of the bankroll is pretty standard, but again, it’s all relative to how much you have in total. Regardless, as long as you have dedicated gambling funds that are organized into a set number of individual bets, that’s all that matters.
While making sure the money lasts for the length of time you’ve planned for it is important, it’s really secondary to the staking plan’s primary purpose. If the amount you stake per bet fluctuates wildly, you may win a high percentage of your picks but still hemorrhage money because you went big on the losses and small on your wins.
Tips:There are going to be times when an NBA team only has a 35% chance of winning, but because the odds imply the probability is only 20%, you have to make a bet.
If your staking amounts are organized and consistent, you can afford to lose 65% of your wagers, because winning the other 35% of the time and paying out at +400 (the odds at which implied probability is 20%) will more than make up for the losses, and you’ll come out way ahead.
But if you’re staking random amounts based on a whim, you can no longer count on the math working itself out over time. So, if you’re going to gamble like a professional with value in mind, you’ll need to get used to adhering to a staking plan.
Understand Value and How to Find It
We gave a basic example of how betting based on probability and value works, but now we’re going to look closer at implied probability and how to solve for it. The implied probability is merely a conversion of odds into a percentage. It’s realizing that when the bookmaker sets a line at +300, they’re telling you they think that team has a 25% chance of winning.
Implied Probability
So, we convert odds into a percentage to get a better idea of how probable the bookie believes it is that they’ll win. Now what? That’s where your handicapping will come into play. The lines offered by sportsbooks have the vig built in and have been moved by public dollars, so the implied probability is not entirely in line with the actual likelihood of a win or loss.
The money is made by accurately coming up with your own probabilities, and then comparing them to the percentage the odds are giving you. If the real likelihood of a team winning is higher than what’s implied, that bet has value. It doesn’t matter if the actual probability is only 30% and the implied is 15% because despite losing 70% of your wagers, the times that you win are going to pay out at +567 moneyline odds.
If you do a Google search for an odds converter or implied probability converter, you’ll find that there are tons of them available for free on the internet. Despite this fact, it’s good to know the formulas yourself, so here they are.
Converting a -185 moneyline favorite:
- 185 / ( 185 + 100 ) * 100 = IP
- 185 / (285) * 100 = 64.9%
So, if you were placing a bet at -185 odds, you’d need to win 64.9% of the time to break even, and the real probability would have to be 65% or higher for the bet to possess any value.
Converting a +225 moneyline underdog:
- 100 / (225 + 100) * 100 = IP
- 100 / (325) * 100 = 30.8 %
When betting on a +225 underdog, you only have to win 30.8% of the time to break even, and if the real likelihood of a result was 31% or greater, that bet would have value.
Converting every single wager you look at into implied probability before making any decisions is a habit that you should get used to. But converting odds into a percentage is the easy part of the process. The hard part is figuring out the real probability. But since this article was made to assist beginners, we’re going to find a way around all that tricky handicapping.
Instead, we’re going to combine the use of a staking plan and converting for implied probability with some NBA betting systems that have impressive winning percentages. Then it’s just as easy as researching how often these systems produce winning bets, comparing that percentage to implied probability, and betting if the system’s rate of winning is higher than the implied probability. See, you’re betting on the NBA like a pro without having to play with numbers on a spreadsheet all day and night!
Winning NBA Betting Systems
The following systems are all very specific scenarios that occur throughout the NBA season but are worth identifying and betting on. Because these are just the situations and how often these bets win, we won’t know if the wagers would be smart or not without there being any odds. But when there are odds, it will be as easy as converting them into a percentage and seeing if the betting system’s win rate is higher than the implied probability of not.
No Back-to-Back Blowouts
This system requires a home team that’s favored by ten or more points with the point spread. Once you’ve found teams that match that description, look at the results from their last game. If they won the previous game by 15 points or more, bet against them. Heavily-favored home teams that just enjoyed a blowout victory only cover the spread 42.5% of the time.
That means a substantial road underdog playing a home favorite coming off a big win is a decent bet against the spread with a 57.5% success rate. Since this is against the spread, this bet should provide some value and pay out at nearly even odds. Either way, anything less than -135 moneyline odds will work, which shouldn’t be difficult to find in this scenario.
The 1/3 System
The 1/3 system is another NBA betting system that’s meant to be used when betting against the spread. It’s similar to the Martingale system in the way you increase your stakes, and it’s designed to be profitable as long as you win two out of six bets, which equals 33% or 1/3. You make a series of six wagers, adhering to the following staking plan: X, 2X, 4X, 6X, 8X, 12.5X. So, if your first bet is for $20, the progression would be $20, $40, $80, $120, $160, and then $300.
You continue working through the progression until you’ve made a profit, at which point you start over.
For ExampleIf you lose the first three wagers but win the fourth, you will still be slightly down overall. Despite winning a bet, you proceed to the fifth staking value in the series. If that bet wins, you start over. If it loses, you continue to the sixth amount.
This system can be combined with the zig-zag strategy, which will be covered below, to minimize the potential of losing more than four games in the series of bets. For it to work well, you’ll want consistent odds of -110, which is why we apply this method to point spread betting. Before using the 1/3 system, be aware that a particularly unlucky streak can cost a sizable chunk of your bankroll. For this reason, if you lose the first five bets, start over without proceeding to the sixth.
Non-Conference Overs
Historically, bookmakers have underestimated the amount of scoring between non-conference opponents. In this system, we are first looking for a matchup between teams in different conferences. Once you’ve found the games in which an Eastern Conference franchise plays a foe from the West, look for the totals lines being offered by the bookie.
We want the over-under to be at least 220 points, or slightly higher. Despite the already-high total, betting the “over” is the way to profit from this scenario. In fact, Allen Moody, a professional sports gambler, used this system for a five-year stretch in which it won 63.5% of the time. At that rate, as long as the “over” is being sold as the underdog bet or at least closer to even money than -174 moneyline odds, this is a good bet.
Home Teams Bounce Back from Bad Offensive Showing
For this approach, you’ll need to have some offensive averages from the season to compare to recent performances. We’re looking for a team that’s playing at home who had a lousy offensive performance in the previous game. Look for teams with winning records who shot a much lower FG% than their average and scored fewer points than their typical points per game.
Teams that fit this description have exceeded their expected point total and won against the spread 62% of the time.
Note:So, if there’s a home team licking their wounds after a low offensive output, and you can bet them against the spread at -163 or less, you should do it. The point spread should move the odds closer to even money, meaning this has lots of value as a bet!
You may want to consider betting the “over” on the total score as well. Totals betting isn’t included in the data for this system, but considering it capitalizes off of the same recency bias, it will most likely be a winning play. This may also provide an excellent opportunity to parlay both bets.
Early-Season Back-to-Back Fade
One of the major gripes you frequently hear from NBA players and coaches are about games scheduled on back-to-back nights. As the season rolls on and fatigue sets in, players need more than 24 hours to recover. Otherwise, their performance is hindered. Well, the majority of casual bettors treat all back-to-backs equally, which is the wrong move.
The smart play is to find early-season back-to-backs, before the long road trips and the physicality of the season have taken their toll. If you fade the public by betting on the team playing their second game in two nights, preferably within the first month of the season, history shows they’ll cover the spread 58.6% of the time. That means anything less than -142 odds will have value, and since this bet is against the spread, once again, the odds should be closer to -110, which is great for us!
Road Favorite After Bad Loss
For this tip, you’ll need a team that’s favored to win despite playing on the road and who just suffered an embarrassing defeat. NBA teams that were just blown out by fifteen points or more tend to take out their frustrations on their next opponent, especially if it’s an underdog!
When a team lost their previous game by fifteen or more and traveled to an underdog’s stadium for their next game, the road favorite has won roughly 64% of the time. At that winning percentage, you’ll need a team favored by less than -178 to find value.
Another way to utilize this same system and increase the chances of winning is to bet only the first half. The idea is that a team that’s favored on the road after just experiencing a humiliating defeat must be a quality team and that the loss must have been uncharacteristic. The best way to erase the sting of that humiliating defeat is to really smash the next opponent. That extra motivation and push will most likely be more impactful in the first half before they settle into playing a typical game.
Home Dogs Getting 10 or More Points
This time, we are looking for an underdog team playing at home. Once again, with this system, we are making a bet against the spread, so the payout should be close to even money. If the home team is a ten-point underdog or more, they cover the spread just over 58% of the time.
Make sure not to accidentally make this bet on the moneyline, though, because while they cover the spread at an impressive rate, these teams lose the actual game a vast majority of the time. Still, with a 58% chance of winning, anything closer to even money than -138 is a slightly profitable bet in the long run. But there are ways to sweeten the return.
This system becomes particularly useful when the road team is getting 70% or more of the betting action. Due to the odds typically offered in these situations, it will be difficult to profit in any significant way if you don’t time the bet correctly. But if you can find a home underdog that’s getting ten or more points and only bringing in 30% or less of the action, the resulting line movements make this a winning system worth using.
Zig-Zag System
A zig-zag system is an approach to gambling that can be used for several different sports. It is primarily used when wagering on playoff games, specifically in sports that play a best-of series rather than single elimination. The system operates under the assumption that sportsbooks and casual bettors overreact to recent performances and that playoff teams will respond to losses with extra urgency and motivation.
Whichever team lost the previous game outright is the side you then bet against the spread. However, by itself, this system only wins 50.9% of the time.
The zig-zag system works much better when the team responding to a loss is playing at home, notably when the previous failure also occurred on their home court. This brings the odds up to 53%, which is enough to become profitable. If you want to improve your chances significantly, add additional filters to find home teams that lost their previous game by at least three points and who won at least 60% of their games during the season.
When this scenario presents itself, the odds of winning against the spread are strongly dependent upon the size of the point spread. If it is between -3 and -4.5, the bounce-back home team beats the spread at a rate of just over 58%. Spreads between -5 and -5.5 aren’t as worthwhile, covering at a rate of about 51%, but spreads of -6 or more win between 62% to almost 80% of the time!
You may also want to seek out road teams who lost their previous contest. When a road team loses their last game on the road and the point spread ranges between -3.5 and +3.5, they fail to cover the spread 64.5% of the time. So, if you find such a road team, make sure to bet the home team instead, despite this not technically fitting into the zig-zag system.
Notes and Research
Now that you have some specific scenarios to identify, it will take a little bit of effort to stay on the lookout for them so that you may benefit. For the most part, you should just check the lines being offered every day and just scan for underdogs at home or road favorites, then research the next criteria, like whether or not they lost their last game badly.
Some of these scenarios are very specific, so they may not come up too terribly often. But that’s why these systems all have reasonably high winning percentages. A smart handicapper searches out these ideal situations and capitalizes when the price is right. Just take the time to do a little research beyond merely looking at the odds.
Keep a Journal of Your Bets
We’ve given you a lot to digest in this article, between managing your finances, calculating probabilities, and then searching out specific matchups. The only thing left for you to do is to begin taking notes. For each bet you make, write down the two teams playing, the odds that were offered, which side you bet, and the reasoning behind the pick that you made. Then mark down whether the bet won or lost.
Note:Over time, the information in these notes will become a valuable learning tool. You’ll see patterns in your thought processes that have either brought you success or lead you astray. Once you see them written out like that, it will be easier to avoid them in the future.
You can even make a note of what experts you listened to for the pick, so you’ll eventually know whose advice is worth hearing and who always costs you money. The more details you can add, the more benefit you will get from these notes in the future. You can take them on a spreadsheet, too, which will be easier to manipulate and analyze when it’s time.
Final Thoughts
In the NBA, the teams that perform at the highest level and sustain their success year after year are the ones that are fundamentally sound and disciplined. The San Antonio Spurs come to mind in this instance. The betting systems we’ve covered in this article are to gambling on NBA basketball what bounce passes and hitting your free throws are to an actual basketball team.
Bankroll management and calculating implied probability so that you may determine a bet’s value are two concepts that separate the handicappers from the casuals. The majority of the people betting on sports are just doing it for fun or because they like trying to predict the winners. But picking winners is a fool’s errand because even if you are correct most of the time, you most likely won’t be making any money.
Using the provided betting strategies or finding more is a sound way to win money and gain experience if you’re willing to take the few minutes required to research a team’s previous game or how many points they usually score. With experience, you’ll grow more comfortable with staking plans and comparing the results these systems produce with implied probabilities to see if there’s a good bet to be made. Just let the math do the work for you, and sit back and enjoy the profits!
Of the four major American sports, the NBA is still regarded as the easiest to predict on a nightly basis. This perceived predictability is a double-edged sword; on one side, it’s nice to be able to handicap a matchup on your own and be fairly accurate more often than not. On the other side, the bookmakers are close to or spot on with their opening lines with more regularity than we’d desire.
Still, betting on NBA basketball offers great profit potential to those who know how to navigate this unique betting landscape. One big key to staying profitable in NBA betting is to understand how the lines are made and what they mean. Staying sharp in this area will allow you to find spots where the lines are off and ready to be hammered, and also when to stay away, which is a big skill in keeping a good margin in NBA betting.
Our ultimate NBA betting strategy guide comes directly from experts who have put their money where their mouths are and have made their livelihood as advantage bettors for years. They’re happy to share their insights and expertise to give you helpful strategies to improve your NBA betting prospects. Whether you’re new to NBA betting or you’re a seasoned gambler looking for a way to sharpen your basketball betting acumen, we’re very confident that you’ll find our tips useful.
Our guide is broken down into sections to help give you an easier read and help make things easy to find if you ever need to come back and get a refresher on a particular topic. Good to go? Let’s get started.
I. The Basics
These basic skills and strategies lay the groundwork for solid and informed NBA betting. You always want to have a good foundation to start with, and these tips help lay that groundwork. You might find some of these tips to be obvious, but simple disciplines go a long way. In the long run, keeping your betting game on the rails is one of the biggest factors that will separate you from winning and losing significant units of money.
While some of the tips in this section can be applied to most other forms of sports betting, they are listed here because of their unique value to betting the NBA.
Make a Bankroll Management Plan
Most folks budget when it comes to basic stuff like food or housing, but for whatever reason, they completely abandon this concept when it comes to gambling. But the bottom line is this: if you want to be able to gamble consistently and win, you have to have some basic bankroll management.
How you keep tabs on your betting bankroll is up to you; we’re not trying to force financial advice upon you. But NBA betting can be very intensive, and there is a lot of action to be had each night. To keep from hemorrhaging cash in a short amount of time, you want to have a good plan for what your overall bankroll is and what your standard bet will be based on the balance.
No matter how basic your method may be, having a way to keep an eye on your bankroll will help keep you from going off the rails with huge bets that could cripple you if they miss. You’ll also be more likely to avoid the temptation of chasing losses. A good plan is the best way to stay in the pocket with your betting system and find out what works and what doesn’t over an extended period of time.
Stay Informed on Player Injury and Rest Updates
There is no worse feeling than playing a betting line you think is way off base, only to realize after your loss that the line was “juicy” because a star player on the team you bet was out for the night with an injury or was being rested. Not only do you feel like a square for losing, but you feel regret because you know you could have made a better decision simply by checking out the injury updates.
This kind of stuff happens all the time, and it’s just a black hole for your bankroll. Please make sure you’re staying up to the minute on personal news when betting. In addition to knowing who’s in or out of a game, make sure you have the latest on things like minute restrictions or if a guy is playing banged-up and won’t be as productive. Incorporate the information however you wish; just make sure that you have it in the first place. Don’t bet blind.
We’re not blowing smoke just to make a point; this is a huge priority for any serious NBA bettor. This is because injury news about players often doesn’t break until very close to game time – sometimes mere minutes before tip-off! You must stay apprised of injuries or other happenings all the way to game time, and our advice to you is to place your bet as close to tip-off as you can.
This might sound cumbersome, but not only is there amazing value in saving money on a play you would have otherwise made, but you also will find easy profit opportunities betting the other way thanks to breaking news. There’s a reason the big sharps have little closed-circuit TV monitors in their private booths – they relish the opportunity to race a ticket in before the book can change a line or take it off the board altogether.
When news breaks, it takes time for books to adjust the lines. The sharks take advantage of this. The fish miss out or get eaten alive because they didn’t know the facts. Don’t be a fish; BE A SHARK!
Pay Attention to Schedules and Schedule Tracking
The premise is simple; teams don’t perform as well when they’re fatigued as they do when they’re fresh. Much like the injury tracking above, it’s also good common sense to make sure your betting horse isn’t limping into the arena on tired legs. But what was long held by sharps as a hunch has now become a legit game changer in the age of data. We’re sure some big shot at the books played a role as well, but the bottom line is that schedule tracking is a big thing to watch out for now.
What is schedule tracking, you ask? Schedule tracking is looking at a team’s schedule and looking for rough patches in the schedule that would lead the team to be tired or fatigued. The hope is that on these particular games, the betting line fails to reflect this crucial factoid and a team is overvalued, giving great value to a bet against that team. This is especially valuable for teams that the betting public likes no matter the case, as books have to keep the lines high to keep their action balanced.
There are multiple angles to look for when using scheduling to influence your betting. The most well-known example of a schedule-based betting trend is the “back-to-back,” which is the popular way of saying that a team will play on consecutive nights. Back-to-backs are a part of most NBA daily betting analyses when it’s in play, especially when the particular team’s games are on the road or have a road/home combo.
However, simply finding a team on a back-to-back is not enough to guarantee profit on your play. Like we said earlier, this is a majorly tracked trend now. The bookmakers now know that this kind of money will come in big and they’ve adjusted accordingly. Staying that crucial step ahead will require a bit more keen strategy. Thankfully, we’ve got just that in the next section, which focuses on skills you will want to incorporate specifically for NBA betting.
II. NBA Betting: Get the Edge
Having basic betting principles down is a great way to ensure that you’re not simply throwing your money away. Beyond that, you’ll want to have some skills specifically tailored to the sport you’re betting. Below are some of the strategies and tactics our experts employ to find the best lines and stay up on the books. We’re happy to share, and we encourage you to use them and improve upon them at home!
Read the Bookmaker
One of the most important principles Sun Tzu teaches in The Art of War is to know your enemy, and that’s what this tip is all about. Learning to think about the bookmaker’s intentions when putting out a line is definitely one of those “separator” skills – by that we mean that it’s one of those defining betting skills that separate the consistently profitable pros from the losing recreational bettors.
This is a “game behind the game” tip, but it’s extremely important in NBA betting (just as much as in NFL betting, in our opinion). The principle is to ask a very simple question: why did the book open the line at that number? Expert sharps consider it second nature to ask this question, but most folks never even think to.
We could list examples for days, but let’s discuss one to show you what we mean:
A and B are two evenly matched teams playing in a highly anticipated game where a lot of betting volume is expected. Team A is at home. After all the factors like home court advantage and such are factored in, the game is a true pick’em. So, what do you think the opening line will be?
Team A – (-1)
That’s right; if you thought zero, you’re wrong.
In this example, we said the game is a true pick’em, and it is. So why did the book open the line at -1? Great question! Now you’re learning.
This is a common example of the public’s inclination to bet the home team in true coin-flip situations. Another common perception (even amongst experienced NBA bettors) that are leveraged by the books in this example is that if a team is going to win, they’ll likely win by more than one point, so it’s worth it to lay the point and pay less vig than you would on a moneyline bet.
Bookmakers capitalize on these common perceptions by putting pick’em games out at Home Team (-1) or (-1.5) to make the public pay a premium on their habit. They’ll also put out Home Team (-1) opening lines even if the home team should open as a 1-point underdog.
The reason? If public perception is that the game is a flip, the bookmakers know they’re going to receive more bets on the home team. Therefore, they want that side of the action to pay the vig so they make their profit on the percentages in the long run. And overall, they do just that. So long as the game outcomes fall on the 50/50 line, they make money on the point and all the times the supposed “dog” comes through. You profit in this scenario by avoiding the trap of hammering what you think is a betting favorite only laying a point at home.
We aren’t saying that every opening line out there is a trap by the books. What we are saying is that by asking yourself what the book is trying to accomplish with a particular betting line (or price) and why the lines are where they are, you’ll find great opportunities all over the board on a regular basis.
Find the Shaded Lines
“Line shading” is a term referring to when a bookmaker anticipates heavy betting action on one side of a matchup and moves an opening betting line toward that side. Line shades can be small (one point) or large (3+ points) and are a great profit-seeking area of betting if you know how to find them.
Let’s say the Boston Celtics go on a hot streak (both in wins and ATS) that gets a lot of media attention. In such a case, more public bettors will start to come in wanting to ride the wave. To keep their betting handle balanced, the books respond by inflating lines involving the Celtics by a couple of points. So if the Celtics were supposed to be a (-9) favorite in a game, the books will put them out at (-11) instead.
There is nothing wrong with what the bookmaker is doing here. If the Celtics stay hot, the books could lose a lot of money each game from lopsided betting on them. So shading the line is the correct move on their part so long as it evens out their action. They can discourage enough sharp bets on the Celtics who want to bet for value, and they make the public take a bigger risk of a dog cover.
In scenarios like these, the value play is often (but not always) to bet against the shaded line and take advantage of those underdog points. Both the books and the sophisticated bettors know that the line has been swung to disfavor a cover by the Celtics. It’s literally a gift to you. Take it! More often than not, the public will be disappointed, while the sharps enjoy a nice score and keep on trucking. The bookmaker is satisfied that they got enough action on both sides, and all is well in the betting world.
The only downside with this sort of play is that it is based on short-term perceptions, so you can’t really plan for it. The only real way to find these opportunities is to keep up with NBA news and events and build up a bit of a bettor’s intuition of when the masses have caused a line shade.
Another great scenario where books shade lines hard is on second-half lines where the action got super lopsided in the first half. This is covered a little bit later in the guide in the Middling Second-Half Bets section.
The overall principle here is to remember that line shading can happen for any reason. Much like the first section talking about reading the bookmaker’s intentions, a big part of finding a shaded line is to try to find out if the book is trying to encourage or discourage action on a certain side. The best way to do that is to stay informed.
Fade the Public
We’re sure you see this a lot; it’s part of almost any expert betting advice on any sport that’s out there. Well, it’s there for good reason! The books are there to make money, and they make money by forcing the public to pay a premium for their popular notions.
Even if a notion has merit, it will lose value in the betting market by way of having everyone doing it. It’s not that being with the public is always wrong; it’s just that in this business, it’s going to be very costly to do so over time. Awkward as it might be to tell your best buds that you bet against the hometown team this evening, it beats losing money to mere sentiment. Being a contrarian bettor is a skill you simply must embrace to keep your bankroll intact.
Betting against the public is a great intuition to have, and just by embracing it, you will find yourself sniffing out inflated lines and finding trends where the public is giving too much or too little credit to a team based on reputation or media coverage or whatever whim of the day.
Our tip to you is just to make sure you don’t overdo it. It’s nice to have the skill and the fortitude to go the other way when it’s the right play, but make sure it’s the right play. It’s not enough to find the public’s money and go the other way. That is a losing system. Instead, make sure you combine your plays against the grain with other supplemental factors that make your bet more of a high percentage prospect, e.g., an inflated line or a scheduling trend.
Know How to Middle the Second Half
Now we’re betting some NBA! This is a sweet play that you’ll want to learn; it’s an absolute moneymaker, and it’s a part of every professional bettor’s arsenal.
For those not familiar, the term “middle” or “middling” refers to instances where swings in the betting lines allow for opportunities where a player can bet both sides of a game and potentially win both bets.
Atlanta is playing Boston, and the line opens with Boston as a (-5) favorite. You bet on Boston.
An hour before tip-off, it is announced that Atlanta is resting two of its best players that evening and they will not play. Betting action comes in very heavy on Boston, and the book responds by swinging the line on all the way up to a (-10) favorite.
The middling opportunity here is if you bet Atlanta (+10). No matter what, you will win one of your bets. But if Boston wins by 6, 7, 8, or 9 points, both tickets get paid.
This may sound like free money, but there is risk involved: while one of your bets will come through, if both don’t, you will be a slight loser by paying the vig to the house. Make sure you’re aware of the probabilities versus the price before deciding to take a middle.
Now that we have middling down, let’s make some money.
The tip we’re suggesting you look out for is when you’ve already wagered on an NBA game, and then the first half results in a blowout for one side.
Chicago is playing Detroit, and you bet Detroit as a (+3) underdog.
Detroit blows out Chicago in the first half and leads by 15 at halftime.
The bookmaker puts the second half line at Chicago (-6).
BEGIN HAPPY DANCE.
In this scenario, you already have an 18-point cushion for your (+3) bet on Detroit. Excellent.
But if you bet Chicago to cover the (-6) in the second half, Chicago can win the half by anywhere between 7 and 18 points and both of your bets will get paid (excluding O.T.). You now have an 11-point range where both bets will win. Most Excellent.
That example is not an exaggeration. Middling opportunities like these are out there throughout the NBA season. Sportsbooks make a ton offering half lines. But their weakness with some of these lines is that they have to put the line out based on where they think the bets will fall, the action that’s occurred, and the action they’ve already taken on the game. They also have to be wary of what competitors’ books are doing. And they have to do it all in very short time (while the teams are in the locker room).
Look for opportunities like these and crush the books when they give you a big opportunity like this. It’s a winning play that’s yet to be corrected in the betting markets, and we highly encourage you to take advantage of it.
The best way to take advantage of this play is to have access to multiple accounts across betting sites. It allows you to line shop all over the world and increase your chances of finding these great plays. If you’re interested, you can find information on safe and reliable sports betting sites on our main pages.
Here are some other great tips and trends to help you become a great NBA handicapper:
Energy and Morale
The art of gauging a team’s energy level has many components. Part of it is being in tune with their schedule, and part of it is staying in tune with locker room tensions or stress (and how these tensions are affecting performance).
This is a difficult betting nuance to write about, especially for experienced bettors. So much of what you analyze in professional betting are hard numbers – spreads, stats, scores, rinse and repeat. Asking you to place actual value on something like locker room drama is a tough sell.
But the numbers we crunch are often just reflections of the trends we find by using our senses to observe the teams. How did player rest become a big trend in NBA betting? Because we observed it, bet on it when others weren’t, and won big. More than any other method, this how the pros find new trends before anyone else.
Following this tip is asking you to trust your gut, scary as that can be for some. This isn’t for everyone; if you just want to be a snipe-the-numbers bettor, that’s perfectly fine. You can make good and consistent money just going the math route. But in our opinion, the truly elite sports bettors – the ones who make trends and bend lines – trust their intuition on how to gauge a team’s energy level and determine when a team is ripe to over/underperform a line that’s out there.
If you decide to use this factor in your betting system, our #1 piece of advice to you is simply to take notes on why you’re betting a certain way so that you can track your results over time.
Don’t Be Afraid of Road Favorites
More than the other major sports, NBA lines are influenced by two big betting habits: home court advantage, and a team’s previous game(s). Most public bettors fear losing a bet because the other team got a charge from the home crowd or “got home calls from the refs.” It’s the reason they play so heavily on home teams.
As a result, there are often great value plays for good teams that hit the road. Books know they’re going to get big action on the home underdog even after they shade the opening line toward them. Worse case, the sharps hammer them early, they move the line toward the road favorite, and they’ll get the home team bets on the back end.
This is especially true of teams coming off a big loss in their last game. If a solid team is on a road trip and they get blown out in one game, take a look at them in the next game if they’re a favorite. Not only are they a good team looking to bounce back, but they’re probably playing a clearly inferior team if they’re still listed as a favorite on the road despite the bad loss. You’re might benefit from a more significant point swing in your favor, as well.
Sometimes it pays to be early in this spot, but all the same, the play is there. You’ll have to sweat out some home calls here and there, but this play performs quite well over time.
III. NBA Betting: Keep the Edge
Nba Betting Cover
Once you have some solid betting strategies to wield, it’s great to see good results come in. Staying ahead, however, means never being complacent and always looking for ways to improve your betting system. This section has just a couple of tips that we think you should consider to help tighten up your game.
Track Your Bets by Team; Consider Specializing
Every bettor has strengths and weaknesses in their game. Some of it is just natural. For instance, time zones alone can determine what teams a person sees more often than others.
Nba Betting Model
This tip isn’t about overall strategy so much as it’s about tracking your bets and making sure your results are consistent across teams.
Nba Betting Uk Sites
When you bet a game, you’re betting on the performance of both the winning and losing teams. If you find that you’re crushing your bets on one team and whiffing more often than you’d like on others, take a step back and ask yourself why. Hopefully, you’ll reach the desired effect and find out if and where you might be weak in your observation of certain teams. Then you’ll know exactly where you must either improve your analysis or just save some of those losing bets.
If you find that you’re consistently doing well with a certain group of teams, e.g., the division your favorite team is in, consider specializing your bets to games involving those teams and branching out from there. You’ll have a little less to chew on, and your laser-beam focus on just a few teams can keep your good results consistent.
Nba Betting Movie
Track Your Results by Bet Type
Nba Betting Market
You certainly want to keep good records of your results no matter what sport you’re betting – it’s the mark of a good handicapper. But we think it’s particularly important to track your NBA bets by bet type. By bet type, we primarily mean tracking your bets by:
- Spreads vs. money lines
- Straight bets vs. parlays (and if parlays, how many legs)
- Full-game bets vs. 1st/2nd half bets or bets on quarters
These are just the most basic examples, but you can track your bets by any kind of pattern that you think is worth a second look. The most important thing is that you actually do it. The point of it is to make sure that each type of bet you put down is making you money. If a certain bet you’re making is a drain on your bankroll over time, save that bet or transfer it into a bet type that performs well for you.
Tracking your NBA bets will also help you ensure that you’re not throwing away your money on certain types of bets. If you’re performing well on full-game and second-half bets, but you’re bleeding cash on first-half bets, stop betting the first half! Likewise if you’re grinding out a nice profit on straight bets, only to give it right back by gambling on frivolous long-shot parlays.
Bottom line: tracking your results by bet type will make you money, save you money, and help you identify your strong and weak betting areas.
We hope you found our guide helpful and fun to read, and we’re rooting for you find those trends that work for you and pad your bankroll. No matter what happens, remember to have fun and enjoy the games!