Handicapping NBA Games

Betting on NBA games is quite similar to betting on football in that the types of bets are pretty much the same. You have your straight spread bets as well as over / unders. If you understand football betting, the mechanics of these basketball bets are not difficult. There are also similarities in the more exotic types of bets you can find. There are still parlays and teasers that you can make to enhance your sports betting bankroll. It is quite a different sport than football though, which necessitates a different betting strategy. Some of the nuances of these differences are explained below.

Money line bets are typically not a good bet when NBA handicapping. The favorites win very often in basketball, which makes it quite difficult to earn money this way. When the favorite does lose, you are losing a lot more than you are making. This is quite similar to football, but there is one big difference. Basketball is much more a game of statistics than football. There are fewer players on a basketball court at any one time; therefore a basketball player sees a lot more action than a football player does. This is true even of players that do not start because with only five players on a team, the odds are that they will be handling the ball quite a bit.

Since NBA handicapping can be better understood by looking at statistics, this gives sports books a much larger edge than they have with football. If a player has an 85 percent free throw percentage and a 60 percent field goal percentage, you can be almost certain that this player will be scoring more points than his teammates on the average night. This allows books to set sharper lines, and thus adjust the line appropriately for the popularity of a prop bet like this. By looking at a team’s percentages as a whole, the book can construct a more thorough line for winning and losing, spreads, and over / unders.

How does one overcome this edge? It is actually quite difficult. Line shopping is perhaps the easiest way to do so, but this requires a lot of time and money as you need to have the ability to bet at any of several online sports books. You can usually find one or two books out there that have made a slight mistake when constructing their own line if you look hard enough.

Another way to beat this deficit is to hire a professional handicapper. A professional NBA handicapper will find the true line for you, allowing you to much more easily find and bet on good opportunities. Having a bit of guidance in this department will save your hard earned betting bankroll.

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