Basketball is a very interesting game with millions of fans around the world. Although the National Basketball Association (NBA) is the most popular basketball league, other leagues exist in Europe and Asia, and equally have their fans. Basketball’s popularity makes it appear on many booking sites as a sport to bet on, and people love betting on it. Whether you follow any particular basketball league or not, you will find it easy to bet on basketball games as long as you get the basics. Let’s jump right into it.

First, we need to understand how a basketball game is structured. Knowing this would provide the foundation for not just understanding the game but also how to place bets.

Gameplay

A basketball game is made up of 5 players a side, and the winner of the game is the team that shoots the most points. A game is divided into four quarters of 10/12 minutes each, depending on the league. NBA leagues, which receive the most attention, run from October to July of the next year, with 30 teams competing from the United States and Canada. Other leagues like the Philippines Basketball Association (PBA) and the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) take place at different months of the year as well. But the gameplay is almost similar.

Favourites and Underdogs

Favourites are described as teams that are favoured by the bookmaker. Such teams are usually big teams that are most likely to win a match. For that reason, they are given the lesser odds in a game.

Underdogs are mostly smaller teams that have a smaller chance of winning the game. Bookmakers list underdogs with very big odds, because of how unlikely it is for them to win a game.

Many basketball bet types are available, depending on the league and the bookmaker. But there are some that are very common which you would find useful if you’re new to basketball betting.

Moneyline

This is a very popular form of basketball betting, even common in other sports. Here, you bet on which team is going to win the match. The bookmaker usually displays the name of the team, followed by their winning odds. You simply place a bet on which of the two teams you think would win the game. If that team wins, then you win the bet. This time of bet is usually combined; that is, you can bet Moneyline on many games to increase your profit as the odds usually listed are very small.

Spread Bets

This is a bet type that often gets people confused but is very easy to understand and very profitable. It is essentially a form of handicap betting where the bookmaker thinks a team would win a bet by more than some particular points. For example, in a game between Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets, the bookmaker may list Lakers as ” Los Angeles Lakers -5″ while Nets is “Brooklyn Nets +5”. What this means is that the bookmaker expects Lakers, the favourite team, to win the game by more than 5 points while expecting Nets go lose the game by 5 points or less. You can either bet on Lakers to win by more than a 5-point margin or bet on Nets to lose by 5 points or less. This bet type is better because it allows you to bet on a team to lose and is more profitable to bet on than Moneyline.

Totals

Betting on basketball totals is another thing you can try. Totals are given as the estimated score of both teams in a match, and you have to bet on whether the score if the match would be over or under the estimate. For example, in the Lakers vs. Nets game, the bookmaker may list the expected total as 200, meaning they expect both teams to score 200 points. Now, they could either exceed the 200 points or score below it. So you would have to bet over/under 200 points. If you bet o200 and the final score is 112-90 (=202), then you would have won the bet. But if you bet u200, and the final score is the same total 202, then you lose the bet, since the final score was not under 200.

Overtime

This is betting on whether a basketball game would go into overtime. That is, besides the four quarters, an overtime would be awarded if both teams are tied at the end of the fourth quarter. This does not often happen, so most people do not ever bet this type.

Futures

You can also bet on who would win the league or a conference before it starts. You can bet on what team would win the league as well as which player would win the award for the Most Valuable Player. The odds on such bet are usually big, and the payout, always huge.

Parlays/Teasers

Parlays allow you to combine many bets into one to increase your overall payout. This allows you to win big as long as all the games you bet on win. It is more profitable than betting on every game individually but also has its own risk. Teasers are almost exactly like parlays, but you have more points as an advantage, but that only reduces how much you get paid.

Basketball betting is not as hard as you may think. You just have to take your time to understand how the game works and how teams perform to ease your prediction.