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Betting Guide
The NBA Futures betting game is a fun one, but it is also a long one. To bet an NBA Future is to literally bet the future. What will happen in the future. A lot of times the bets that you make don’t pay off for several months, but they are very lucrative to wait for and are usually the best odds you can get.
There are many different things that can be bet on as an NBA Future, but for the most part this refers to who is going to win the title. These often are bet long before the season ever starts which is when you can get the best odds on teams.
In this article we’re going to show how NBA Futures work, where to bet on them, how to bet on them and most importantly, how to pick the winners.
Where To Bet NBA Futures:
America: One of my favorite sites for betting NBA Futures is Bovada who keep the NBA Championship Futures as well as the Eastern and Western Conference Futures up all year long. They are always moving with the season, but this site always gets them up right after the Finals and keeps them going all the way until the Finals.
Canada: Sports Interaction is fantastic for NBA Futures. Not only do they have the Championship and Conference Futures up all season long, but they also keep Division futures up as well.
Everywhere Else: Bet365 Sportsbook is the place to find future odds on the NBA Championship, NBA Conferences, NBA Divisions as well as awards.
What are NBA Futures?
NBA Futures are bets made on who is going to win the NBA title, Eastern Conference or Western Conference. Typically these bets are made long before the championship is ever decided with the first odds usually going up moments after the previous year’s championship is decided.
As the season goes on these odds stay up, but they change. For example, for the 2017 season there were odds posted in June of 2016. The Golden State Warriors at that time were +200 to win the NBA Championship. In October of 2016 around the start of the season and after they added Kevin Durant, the Warriors were -125 to win the NBA Championship. By December they were -110 and by the start of the Finals they were -240.
The Warriors ended up winning the title and the best odds you could get on them came out in June of 2016. That’s what an NBA Future is. The further out you bet, the better the odds are.
Common NBA Futures Questions:
Why are NBA Futures the best value?
The simple reason is lack of data. While a team can look great on paper in June, you don’t know what the regular season will look like and the only real data that the bookmakers have to go on is the previous year’s data.
Before knowing who goes where in free agency, what players break out, what players get injured and what teams play well is the time to get the best odds on an NBA Future. There is huge risk involved because someone like LeBron James could get injured and ruin your play, but overall this is the way to get the best price.
A great example of this would be the 2015 Warriors. Nobody saw that team coming and in June you could get them at 25/1 to win the NBA Championship. In July they were 20/1 and then by February when everyone started to realize that this team was really great they were the favorite at 3/1.
How to Bet NBA Futures:
Bovada: On the “Sports” section of the page, click on “Basketball” and then at the top there is a drop down menu stating “All Basketball”. Click that, click “NBA”. This opens up a page with the game lines and a new drop down “All NBA”. Click that then click “Futures” and it will display all the futures for you.
Sports Interaction: On the left side bar click on “Basketball” and it will expand the menu. One of the new options will be “NBA Futures” and just click that.
Bet365 Sportsbook: On the left sidebar is a link for “Basketball”. Click on that and it brings up their entire basketball section. Scroll to the very bottom of that page for their “Futures” section which will list all NBA futures as well as other basketball futures such as the Euro Cup, Euroleague etc.
NBA Futures Betting Strategy:
The thing about betting NBA Futures is that you usually just have to pick the favorite. The NBA is a favorites league and it’s very rare that the best team in the league doesn’t get it done. In the past ten years, the NBA Champion has been one of the favorites in NBA Futures from the summer on with the only real exception being the 2011 Dallas Mavericks, who were +3000 in July and +1400 as late as the Conference Semi-Finals, and the aforementioned 2015 Golden State Warriors.
The 2014 Spurs were considered an upset, but they opened the season at +1000 which was the third best odds of any team so not as big of an upset as one might expect. The winner usually comes from the top four teams in the betting odds and usually the top two.
With the way that the NBA has gone the past couple of seasons, your best bet is probably to pick the favorite and get on them at the moment you see them with the best odds.
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