Once you understand how to bet on basketball odds, you can choose any of the listed sportsbooks and sign up for a real money account and start your NBA betting. The listed sportsbooks have competitive NBA odds, and you can even take advantage of the promotions that they have on the site to boost your bankroll.
How to read a line in the sportsbook
A line is a price, and a price moves. The figure beside a team in the sportsbook is the one the bet slip will use at the moment the slip is confirmed, not the one printed in an article written earlier; the slip shows the stake, the price it locked and the return that follows from both before anything is confirmed. Reading that line back is the step that catches a mistyped stake or a market picked by accident.
Opening the same market in two books tells you more than any single price does, because the gap between them is the part a reader can act on. Where a book offers to lock a price while the line is moving, the offer is described on its own help page — the terms there, and not the lobby, say when a locked price still stands.
Point Spread NBA Odds
The spread as they are also known is the number that the sportsbook will choose to give both the teams an equal footing. The favourite will be given a spread with a minus (-) because it is the team favoured to win the match. While the underdog will be given the plus (+) spread which gives them a lead.
However, this spread will work as follows; if the favourite team is given +7.5 point, they will have to win by 8 points for the wager to payout. For the underdog, they will have to lose or win by seven points for the spread to payout.
So then how do you calculate the NBA odds for the teams? The odds that are attached to the spread will be how much you must wager to win a certain amount. For example, using the spread mentioned above, if the odds for the favourite are -110, you wager $110 to win $100. For the underdogs, you will have +105 odds, which means you must wager $100 to win $105.
Moneyline
These kinds of odds are for picking out the outright winner of the game. They are straightforward to understand. NBA odds to win the championship are not specific in how many points the team needs to win by as long as the teams have won the wager will payout.
Similar to the point spreads, the moneyline NBA odds are shown with a plus (+) for the underdogs and the favourites with a minus (-). For example, if the underdogs have odds of +180, you have to bet $100 to win the $180 and for the favourite -200, you have to bet $200 to win $100.
Totals or Over/Under
With the total NBA odds, the oddsmaker will set a number that estimates the points both teams playing sill score. So, which means that when you place your bet, you will be betting whether the teams will have total score points that will either be over or under the set number. Hence, the odds are also known as the Over/Under.
For example, if the oddsmaker has set 204.5 as the total points for the teams when betting under the points have to be less than 204 for the wager to payout. For over, the total points will have to be over more than 204 points.
Futures NBA Odds
When you choose the future bets, you will be wagering on an event that has not yet happened. For the NBA you would be betting on who is going to win the championship. However, the odds for these bets are updated continuously by sportsbooks all year, leading up to the final game.
These are also based on the performance through the season. For the teams that are not doing well, the sportsbooks will drop their odds for winning the championship.
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