Basketball bet types
The most common sports bet types are
- Moneyline – Who will win?
- Points spread – Handicapping the favorite a certain number of points
- Total points – Will the total points be over or under a certain number?
One of the most exciting bet types is index betting on basketball total points or points spread. Also called “lightning betting” and “action points”. Lightning betting 10 m฿ per point that the total points in a game will be over 190 men for every point the game finishes over 190 you win 10 m฿, and for every point, the game finishes under 190 you lose 10 m฿.
That means as soon as the game goes over 190, you are then winning 9 m฿ for every point scored by either team for the rest of the game; this is a huge rush! Lighting bets make junk time and one-sided games just as exciting as close games! Artie Lange describes it as heroin for gamblers in one of the Joe Rogan podcasts.
Live betting
The NBA’s time-outs and the way games have clear momentum swings make it perfect for live betting. The NCAA has fewer timeouts and there are so many NCAA games that fewer sportsbooks can offer full-featured live betting on all of them. As such the NBA is slightly better than NCAA basketball for living betting.
The key to live basketball betting is understanding momentum swings. Usually, both teams will have periods when they dominate the scoring. Even in most games that turn out to be close, both teams will have 10 – 0 runs and be up by 10 or more points at some stage during the game.
These swings are great opportunities for trading, but it’s important you don’t overreact to them if you made a moneyline bet pregame with the plan of letting it run to the end.
Star players are not that important
Don’t overestimate the role of star players. NBA culture is more focused on stars than other sports and the stars seem to have a huge influence on the outcome of games.
In fact, the team as a whole is much more important. A big part of the reason stars like Harden and Westbrook get so many points is that most of the offence is run through them. If they are not playing (or to a lesser extent, if they have a bad game) the offence will simply be run through other players and result in almost as much scoring.
An NBA star missing a game, or having a bad game, has much less impact on the outcome than people think. You can often make positive expectation bets by betting for a team after it becomes public knowledge that their star player will be out injured and the odds over-adjust.
Differences between NBA and NCAA betting
The 3 main differences between NBA and NCAA basketball betting are
1. The NCAA has many more teams and many more games. There are 30 teams in the NBA and 351 teams in Division 1 NCAA men’s basketball!
2. There is a much larger quality gap between the best and worst NCAA teams than there is between the best and worst NBA teams. This results in more one-sided games and larger blowouts in the NCAA.
3. The NCAA is much less predictable. NCAA players are unpaid kids, whereas NBA players are mature and professional. Therefore, NBA players are more consistent. Also, a lot more is known and a lot more data is available about NBA teams, players, and coaches than their NCAA counterparts.
As a result, there are more upset wins by big underdogs in the NCAA.
Where to bet
Who has the best odds
You can see which crypto sportsbook has the best odds for the bet you want to make on the NBA and NCAA basketball odds comparisons. You can see which sportsbook has the best odds overall on the best odds sportsbook ranking at BitOdds.
Who has the best live betting
Sportsbet basketball live betting is beautiful, fun and easy. The live betting features, like live scores and “accept odds changes?” work better on Sportsbet than anywhere else. Cloudbet is almost as good, we make our bets on whichever of the 2 has the best odds at that moment.
Who has the biggest range of bets?
For NBA pre-live Sportsbet takes the honors with 39 bet types. Cloudbet and Betcoin share second place with 30 each.
You can bet on things as obscure as the away team will score an even or odd number of points in the 3rd quarter.
For the NCAA Betcoin (25) has the most bet types available while Cloudbet (18) have the second most.
Who is the best allround sportsbook?
See our detailed written and video crypto sportsbook reviews for all the top options.BC Game (review), Sportsbet (review) and Stake (review) are the best in that order.
How to win
- Follow the advice on How to be a winning sports bettor.
- Don’t pay attention to media pundits. They are paid to be entertaining, not accurate. Case in point; Charles Barkley.
- Try both pre-game betting and live in-play betting, to find out which suits you better.
- Get the highest possible payout for every bet by using NBA and NCAA odds comparisons at BitOdds.
