Picking a winner in basketball isn’t always easy, but beating the spread can be even harder. Sometimes you just don’t want to deal with a -3 or a half point one way or the other. Sometimes you just want to pick the winner and let the result skip for itself.
This is where NBA Moneyline betting comes in. You don’t have to worry about the spread or the total, you just have to worry about who wins. For this reason, NBA Moneyline betting is preferred by many bettors.
Today we are going to cover NBA Moneyline betting. Just exactly what that means, how to bet it as well as where to bet it. We’ll also give you a few tips about how we go about picking our winners for NBA Moneyline bets.
Where To Bet NBA Moneylines:
America: Bovada has some of the most comprehensive betting options for betting on the NBA on the market. They post moneylines on every game as well as point spreads, half-time moneylines, quarter moneylines, and much more.
Canada: This Canadian sportsbook has a ton of NBA betting options from moneylines to totals to futures. Sports Interaction is the top spot for betting NBA in the Great White North.
Everywhere Else: Another great site with tons of NBA betting options is 888. They not only post moneylines on the game, but on each quarter and the second half as well.
What are NBA Moneylines?
NBA Moneyline are odds set on a game where you pick a winner with no spread attached. The moneyline is the odds set on the game. 3
What does this mean? If you bet $6000 on the Rockets, you’d win $100. If you bet $100 on the Suns and they won, you’d win $1673.
The odds are adjusted based on the likelihood of the outcome. Sometimes to the extreme, like in this case.
There will also be moneylines set on each individual quarter and at halftime as well. When you are betting these you are only betting on that timeframe. The rest of the game does not matter. You can often get better odds here on a favorite because it is a smaller window which increases the variance on the outcome.
Common NBA Moneyline Questions:
Why are some lines so high?
Because some teams are great and some are not. While upsets do happen, a top team can win 60+ games and lose under 20. Losses are rare and losses by great teams to mediocore teams are even more rare.
What if you bet only the best team’s moneyline in the NBA?
To make money with this betting strategy, the team that you bet needs to be really good. And I mean REALLY good. As in this is not really recommended. If a good’s team average moneyline for the season was -350 and they went 60-22, you would lose money. Betting $350 on every game, you would win $6000 and lose $7700.
The break even point would be 64-18 as you would win $6400 and lose $6300, a tiny profit based on your wagers. Maybe if a team had a 70+ win pace this would be worth it, but the better the team is – the higher that moneyline gets on average.
This is an extremely risky strategy and not advised.
What is “+500”? I use fractional or decimal odds.
+/- odds are how they are posted in America, but other countries post them in different ways. This is a breakdown of the difference between them.
+500 American / 6 Decimal / 5/1 Fractional
-500 American / 1.20 Decimal / 1/5 Fractional
Fractions quote the potential profit should the bet succeed. While Decimals quote the potential return should the bet succeed, relative to the stake.
How To Bet NBA Moneylines:
The nice thing about betting the NBA Moneyline is how easy they are to find. They are one of the “default” betting options along with over/unders and the point spread and can be found right from the NBA homepage of your preferred betting website.
NBA Moneyline Betting Strategy:
The best strategy for betting NBA Moneylines is to look at the point spread. Is there a game with a line between +3 and +5 that you think the team can win outright? That is the game I like to target when betting moneylines.
A game with a +1 or +2 point spread will likely be around +105 for the underdog. Not really worth it money wise to not take those points and play it safe. With a +3 to +5 line, you can get somewhere between +150 and +250 and that can work out very well in your favor. It’s not something I pull out of my bag often, but it is definitely a tool I have.