One of the highest-scoring and fastest-paced sports around, basketball is a fantastic choice for betting – particularly with so many different markets and bet types to explore.
At interwetten, we provide basketball odds for all of the leading leagues and competitions around the world, including the NBA, EuroLeague and NCAA.
Not only that, we also supply the comprehensive range of basketball betting odds to our customers. You can bet on who you think will win a game, but also handicaps, total points, quarter/half betting, player performance and more.
There’s also the chance to have your say on who you think will win the key events, such as the NBA Championship or the EuroLeague play-offs, courtesy of our outright odds.
Maybe you are a complete beginner when it comes to basketball betting, or perhaps you are simply looking for a refresher. Either way, this article is for you: here, we’ll guide you through all of the steps required to place a basketball bet, as well as tips that might just improve the success rate of your bets too.
How to Read Basketball Odds
To understand the best bets available in any given week, you first must learn to read the basketball odds.
These odds essentially reflect the probability of an event occurring – it could be the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA Championship, or Panathinaikos to beat Real Madrid in the EuroLeague final.
The secret to betting on basketball is knowing when the odds represent good value, i.e. where your potential reward (the profit) reflects the probability of the outcome occurring. There are plenty of calculators online that show betting odds as implied probabilities, which could help you to get a better handle on this.
Odds will appear in decimal, fractional, or American formats. These all show the same thing just in a different way, so deciding which format you want to use and sticking with it will also help you to improve at recognising value betting opportunities.
Basketball Bet Types
We’ve briefly mentioned some of the bet types that are available already, with the key takeaway being that there are so many different ways to enjoy basketball gambling beyond simply trying to predict the match winner.
- Handicaps
Sometimes, you’ll want to bet on a team to win but consider their odds to be too ‘short’, i.e. where the potential profit is too low.
To back that team, you could instead take them in the handicap market, which gives them a tougher obstacle to overcome. So, a -5 handicap on the Los Angeles Lakers is exactly as it looks: five points are taken from their score, but if they win the game by a margin of six points or more then -5 handicap wagers on them would land.
You can also use the handicap market to bet on an underdog. You might not be confident of them winning a game, but you might think that they will only lose by a couple of points - then handicap bets on +5, for example, would be an interesting choice in this scenario.
- Total Points
If you don’t want to predict the winner of a game but believe that it will be either high or low-scoring, you can bet on the total points market instead.
The points tallies of both teams are added together for a combined total score. You will be trying to predict whether this total will be higher (‘over’) or lower (‘under’) than the line provided by interwetten.
- Prop Bets
There’s a host of ‘proposition’ bets that you can place on team and player performance.
You can wager on how many points a team will score and whether or not they will be the first team to score, while player prop options include total points/rebounds/assists etc.
- Outright Bets
As touched upon earlier, you can place ‘long term’ outright bets on season-long markets.
It could be tournament winner, to reach the final, to make the play-offs or NOT to make the play-offs, as just some of the options available.
How to Download Our Basketball Betting App
Many of the best basketball betting sites now offer an app as a way of streamlining the wagering experience.
And you can download the interwetten basketball betting app by searching for us in the app store on your device.
Follow the on-screen instructions to download the app, before registering a new customer account – or logging into your existing account – at your leisure.
Basketball Betting Tips to Get You Started
Now that you have an understanding of how online basketball betting works, you can start to consider ways to improve your strike rate of winning bets.
So here’s some basketball betting tips to help you get up and running:
- Do your research before placing any bet
- Explore all of the different markets available, not just the main ones
- Consider live basketball betting as a more informed way to bet
- Bet a small amount of your bankroll each time
- Never chase your losses
Basketball Betting FAQ
How Does Basketball Betting Work?
To bet on basketball, you must simply predict the outcome of a game or league season. You can wager on which team you think will win a game, which will cover their handicap, how many points will be scored and so on. Or, in outright NBA betting, for example, you would try to predict who will win the Championship game.
How Do Basketball Betting Odds Work?
Basketball odds reflect the probability of an outcome occurring. In most games, there’s a favourite (confirmed by smaller odds) and an underdog (higher odds). The margin between the two teams can be wide or small depending on their relative abilities. You will bet on the odds of the team that you believe will win the game.
What Does Moneyline Mean in Basketball Betting?
Moneyline is an American term that is the same as our European match winner odds market. So, when you’re betting on one basketball team to beat another, you’re betting on the moneyline or the match winner market; they’re the same thing, ultimately.
What is the Spread in Basketball Betting?
In this article, we’ve guided you through handicap betting in basketball – that is, backing the favourite with a minus points handicap, or the underdog with a plus points head-start. The ‘spread’ is the same as a handicap, but it’s a descriptor you’ll more likely hear in North America than Europe.
Ready to get in the game? interwetten’s welcome bonus gives you the perfect head start for your basketball bets!