How To Bet On Basketball - Guide
Basketball is one of the most popular sports through online bettors, which makes them a lot of money. Basketball is popular in all over the world and there is no person, who never heard about basketball.
The biggest advantage about basketball is that every single game is very dynamic and satisfying to be watched, also there are a lot of main leagues, which can bring you a lot of basketball matches, which you can bet on. As for every other sport, for basketball betting, you should know the game deeper, in order to be successful and win some good weekly profit.
History of Basketball
Before jumping to the actual guide for basketball betting, it is very important to know what basketball is. Basketball is a team sport, which faces two teams against each other on a rectangular field. Each of the two teams consists of 5 players.
The main aim of every single player is to bounce the basketball, and score a point into the basket of the opposite team. At the end of the game, the team, which scored more points is the winning one. In December 1891, was the date, on which basketball was first played. Through all those years the rules of basketball changed a lot, then the basketball net does not have a hole, so that ball should be taken manually after a scored point.
Basketball was always a sport, which was very friendly for betting. Through a basketball game, a lot of points can be scored, so that opens a lot of markets and betting options for you. Also, it is very rare to become a draw in basketball games, so this option is almost eliminated. The most important thing, which you should know about basketball rules is that each game is played in four quarters of 10 or 12 minutes. And also basketball is played by both men and women.
Leading Basketball Leagues
One of the biggest advantages of basketball betting is that there are a lot of available basketball leagues, which gives you access to a lot of basketball games. Let’s see some of the most popular ones.
NBA
The National Basketball Association, NBA, is the American men’s professional basketball league. NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the US and Canda. NBA consists of 30 teams. The National Basketball Association was founded on June 6, 1946, but then it was called the Basketball Association of America, BAA, and get the name NBA through 1949. This league is one of the most preferred by online betting lovers. All the games are perfect for betting, also there are a lot of surprising results happening, especially at the end of the season, when each team has limited time to climb in the rank list of the league. In NBA, you can see teams like:
- Boston Celtics,
- New York Nicks,
- Chicago Bulls,
- Atlanta Hawks,
- Miami Heat,
- Golden State Warriors,
- Utah Jazz,
- Phoenix Suns,
- Houston Rockets.
Basketball Euroleague
The Basketball Euroleague is the European basketball Profesional league, which is the second top-rated basketball league in the world, only behind NBA. The Basketball Euroleague was founded in 2000, and started to gain popularity not only through basketball lovers, but also through online betting lovers. The Basketball League opens a lot of betting doors for you. There are a lot of basketball teams, which are competing against each other, so that you can place a lot of bets. The Basketball League is one of the best options for online basketball betting fans.
FIBA
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) is the association of national, which leads basketball worldwide. The International Basketball Federation was formated through 18 June 1932, with the only aim to improve the level of basketball all over the world. FIBA organizes both men and women tournaments, also for players under 19 years old, and under 17 years old, which makes it the biggest basketball association worldwide. When there is a basketball game from FIBA every single bookmaker is offering you a lot of betting options, even the option to place a bet on which team will be the winner.
Liga ACB
Liga ACB or Liga Endesa is the biggest professional basketball division in Spain. Liga ACB was founded in 1983, and consists of 18 teams, which are trying to finish on the top. Liga Endesa is one of the best opportunities for Basketball betting, simply because all the games are unique, and a lot of surprising results may happen, again especially in the end of the season, when the top teams are fighting for the first places, and the last teams, which are trying to prevent dropping to the second Spanish basketball league, LEB Oro, with all that a lot of unexpected results are happening, accompanied with an extremely high winning odds, which can make you a lot of money for no time.
EuroBasket
EuroBasket is referred to as the European Basketball Championship. The EuroBasket is held by FIBA but consists of only European basketball teams. EuroBasket was founded in 1935, the first championship was exactly three years after the establishment of FIBA. In the final competition, 24 European teams take part. Through all the years EuroBasket’s format was changed a lot of times. It was a three-stage tournament, a simple-round tournament, and now a two-stage. EuroBasket gives you a lot of basketball betting options, which can make you a lot of money.
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Basketball Betting Options
After you already know which are the best leagues on which you can place basketball bets, let’s talk about the betting options and markets itself. As we already mentioned, every single basketball match is very dynamic and allows you to place bets on a lot of different markets. In order to be successful, you should know all the markets really well, for some basketball games there are markets that are really hard to be predicted, whereas others are quite better. Now, let’s see some of the most popular available basketball betting markets.
- Winner of the Game - This is the common market for every single sport game. In Basketball, everything is the same, you need to predict who will be the winner of the game, without caring about the points, the games, etc,
- Over/ Under - There are basketball games, which are simply very hard to be predicted, this is when both teams have an equal chance of winning. If that happens you can choose the over/ under market, where you should predict what will be the number of scored points. You can either choose to place a bet for over/ under points of both teams, or only for one of them,
- Handicap Betting - Handicap betting is a very popular market not only for basketball, but for every other sport. Handicap simply gives an advantage for the team, which is not favored, whereas the favored one should win with a difference of points. For example, if a handicap 11.5 is given, the favored team, should win with a difference of at least 12 points,
- Odd/ Even - Odd/ Even is a market, which is quite lucky to be predicted. For Odd/ Even market you simply should predict if the total points scored from both teams is an odd or even number,
- HalfTime/ FullTime - This is one of the most popular markets for basketball betting, where you should predict, which team will dominate in the first, or in the second half,
- Points Difference - This is a market that has a lot in common with handicaps. Here, you should not only predict who will win, but also with how many points difference an exact team will win.
Additional Basketball Betting Options
As a leading sport for online betting, a lot of online bookmakers offer astonishing special betting options for basketball. For no doubt, if you try to use them all, your basketball betting experience will be even better. Some of them, like special bonus offers, can even give you a lot of free money, which you can claim daily. Let’s now see some of them.
- Cash-out - Cash-out is one of the most popular betting options, which is available in almost every single online bookmaker. This option allows you to control your already placed bets, by withdrawing your money before the game ended, so that you can prevent a lot of losing bets, or secure them,
- Live Streaming - There is no player that found the live streaming not helpful. The ability to watch the game, on which you placed a bet is irreplaceable. Live Streaming can be very beneficial for placing live bets,
- Bonus Offers - Every single online bookmaker is offering a lot of bonuses to its players, which for no doubt can give you a lot of free money. Unfortunately, there are not many basketball-specific bonuses, but every single one for sports can be used for basketball,
- Bet Insurance - Over the past few years, bookmakers started to offer bet insurance to its players. This is a great opportunity for players who love risky bets, simply because if you lose your bet, the insurance will return your stake. Bet insurance can be very helpful to all of the basketball betting lovers because there are basketball games, which are very hard to be predicted,
- Statistics - A lot of bookmakers have a special separate section, where you can check all the statistics about both basketball teams, on which you are going to place bets. Statistics can increase the percentage of won bets, only because the best strategy to win, is to always make a research,
- Exchange - Exchange betting gained a lot of popularity through online betting lovers over the past few years. The easiest way to describe exchange betting, is to say that exchange betting is to bet against an exact market. This can be really helpful for players who want to try arbitrage betting.
Let’s now see some of the bookmakers, on which you can benefit from that additional betting options:
| Bookmaker | Cash-out | Live Streaming | Statistics | Bonus Offers | Bet Insurance | Exchange Betting |
| Betfair | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| William Hill | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Unibet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| 10Bet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1xbet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Live Basketball Betting
Almost every single online bookmaker is offering to its players the option to place live basketball bets. Live Basketball betting, can bring to every single one of you a thrill, which cannot be taken from pre-match basketball betting.
The biggest advantage of live basketball betting, is that you follow the gameplay, and you can clearly imagine what will happen afterward. As the game is changing every single second, the odds can simply escalate, so if you follow the game deeply, you can catch a really good odds, and win a lot of money.
The one thing, you should remember about live basketball betting, is that you should always place bets smart, there are a lot of players, who just see an extremely high odds and place a bet, but this is a big mistake. You should always see if there is a possibility for the bet to be winning, not just stake for no reason.
Basketball Betting Strategies
It is not a secret that in order to be successful in betting, you should have some kind of strategy, which you need to follow. There are a lot of players, who just place chaotic bets, which most of the time are unsuccessful, but that can be easily changed, by starting to follow a betting strategy. The only thing you should remember about basketball betting strategies is that you need to see which one is working the best for you. But, in order to help you, even more, we from Bettingy.com, will give you a simple example strategies, which helped a lot of players.
Over/ Under
One of the best strategies, which professional basketball gamblers are using is to place only over/ under bets. This is one of the most popular markets, which actually can bring you a lot of money. Before trying to bet on over/ under market, you should know some things about it. The secret to successful over/ under basketball betting is research. Just a little bit of research can increase the percentage of winning bets. Let’s see what you should look for when you are researching for an over/ under betting:
- Check whether each team is playing offensive or defensive,
- Check if each team’s offensive playing is good or bad,
- Check if each team’s defensive playing is good or bad,
- Check for injured players, which score a lot of points,
- Check which sportsbook is offering the best odds for over/ under market.
Single Betting
A strategy which is followed by millions of players from all over the world, is betting only on singles. Betting only on one event, has a lot of advantages, you simply maximize your chance of winnings, because you only need to predict one game. The disadvantage of singles betting, is that the odds are not high enough as for the accumulator betting, where odds are multiplied with each other,
Accumulator betting
As a lot of people are betting only on singles, there are also players who prefer only accumulator betting. The strategy to bet only on accumulators is very successful to a lot of players, who love basketball betting. Unfortunately, accumulator betting hides a lot of risk, for example, the chance of losing is bigger, only because if you lose only one of all the selections, you lose the whole accumulator bet. In order to be successful in accumulator betting, you should be very good at researching,
Martingale
This is a strategy that is commonly used for roulette in casinos, but over the past few years players started to use it for sports betting. Martingale is a very easy strategy, and the only requirement is to start with a solid amount of money. The secret of Martingale’s strategy is to always double your next bet, and search for odds of at least 2.00, and no matter how many times you lose, when you win a bet, you are going to return your stakes and also will have a good net winning. For example, you place 100 dollars on 3.00 odds, and then loose, then you place 200 dollars on 3.00 odds, again loose, after that you place 400 dollars on 3.00 odds, again loose, after that you should place 800 dollars on 3.00 odds, and win, which will earn you 2400 dollars, and your net winning amount will be 2400 - 100 - 400 - 800 - 200 = 900 dollars.
Virtual Basketball Betting
Over the past few years, virtual sports gained a lot of popularity all over the world. There is no such a betting fan, which does not know what virtual sports are. But, no matter that let’s explain it really fast. Virtual Sports are electronic games based on their real equivalents, but are shorter in length, but have similar markets and odds so that you can win a lot of money for no time. Most of the top online bookmakers, which offer virtual sports, offer virtual basketball, which as you already know is based on the real game. Each Virtual Basketball game lasts for about 1 minute, and after that, you have about 2 minutes to prepare your next bet. Virtual Basketball game’s results are generated by a special algorithm, which ensures the random outcomes. Virtual Basketball is the perfect alternative to the real sports, for a situation, in which you cannot find games, on which you can place bets.
Top 5 Tips for Basketball Betting
As you know there is nothing sure when we talk about betting, but the percentage of successful bets, can be always increased. In order to help you win a lot of money, and become a master in basketball betting, we from bettingy.com, will give you some very important tips, which can help you improve your betting experience.
Never Underestimate Home court advantage
There are a lot of players who underestimate the home-court advantage, which is one of the biggest mistakes. Every single basketball team is performing a way better on its home-court, and a lot of factors, like the audience, are responsible for that. So, our first tip is to never underestimate the home-court advantage, which every single basketball team has. The worst performing team for the moment can win on its home field against the better performing team,
Ignore your favorite team
The next tip that we will give you is to ignore your favorite team when you are placing a bet. A lot of players are mistaken only because their favorite team is playing, and no matter that sometimes your team has no chance for winning, you can still place a bet for it to win. We know that it is very hard to bet against your favorite team so that the best thing you can do is to never place a bet on a game, on which your favorite team is playing. No matter if we are talking about a favorite team from the NBA, or your national basketball team, just ignore that game,
Research
This is a tip, which we will advice you no matter what sport you are betting on. Only a few minutes spent in researching can be very important for placing the right bet. There are a few things, which you should look for when you are researching:
- Which is the home team,
- What is the condition of both team’s players,
- Are there any injured players,
- How teams are performing against each other,
- Which is the favored team and why?
Never underestimate how important the game is for both teams
As we already mentioned a few times above, in basketball there are games, which are very important for one of the teams. This may play a big role in the final outcome, but be careful that can be misleading sometimes. You can be very careful for that type of games especially in the beginning and the end of an exact season, also for important games like finals of championships, etc,
Watch out for unexpected moves
As you already know different bookmakers have different minds about every single basketball game, and every single bookmakers offer different odds for every game. But, sometimes things are going a little bit strange, all the public is betting for an exact option, but the odds for the opposite one are dropping very fast. The secret behind that is because betting experts made their research and found out that this option is quite obvious to happen. So, if you see that kind of an unexpected drop of odds, you should think of betting on that option.
Frequently Asked Questions about Basketball betting
Q: Which is the best strategy for basketball betting?
A: All the strategies can be good, but there is no one, which is considered as best, simply because, for every single player, different strategies will work the best. So, you need to try some of them and see which fits you.
Q: Which is the best online bookmaker for basketball betting?
A: As for the strategy, bookmakers also depend on you. Every single online bookmaker has a different mind about what is the best. So, again you need to see which is the best for you.
Q: Are there any basketball-specific bonus offers?
A: Unfortunately, there are not many basketball-specific bonus offers, but in every single online bookmaker, you can claim a lot of bonus offers for sports, which can be used for basketball betting.
Q: Can I enjoy betting on basketball throughout the whole year, or there are basketball events only for a certain period of time?
A: Most of the major basketball leagues last for a certain period of time, but that does not mean that there are no basketball events throughout the whole years. There are always basketball events, but through the year, they are from different leagues.
In Summary
Basketball is for no doubt one of the most popular sport for online betting, which is chosen from so many players every single day. The biggest advantage of basketball betting, is that each game is very dynamic, also there are a lot of basketball leagues, which can offer you a lot of events on which you can place bets, do not forget about the many markets, which are available in almost every single online bookmaker, all of these things and many others make basketball one of the best sports for online betting.
And by reading that extended basketball betting guide, you already know how to become very good in basketball betting, why following an exact betting strategy is very important, also you have an idea which strategy to follow, and also you know some of the most important tips for basketball betting. And never forget that one of the most popular tips for becoming an expert at betting is to always research before placing a bet.
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