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Betting Guide
The foundation of all betting is point spreads and the NBA is no different. Point spreads are what keep things interesting late in the game when the winner has been decided, point spreads are what entice us and point spreads are what all bettors dream of beating. Picking winners is easy, beating point spreads is what the sharp bettors do.
In this article we are going to show how to bet on NBA Point Spreads, where to find them and some of our best strategies for betting on them. Finding the best place to bet on NBA point spreads is a key to beating them as sometimes a half point one way or the other can change everything.
We’ll cover all that and more in the article below so let’s just get right to it.
Where To Bet NBA Point Spreads:
America: Bovada is one of the best options for betting on NBA point spreads. They usually get the lines up early in the day and are constantly updating them throughout the day until gametime. One of the best things here is the ability to buy extra points if you want them.
Canada: It’s hard to go wrong with Sports Interaction for NBA Point Spreads in the Great White North. They have some of the very sharpest lines in the industry and are one of our favorite sites to bet at.
Everywhere Else: It’s easy to find good NBA Point Spreads if you head over to 888. They are always updating their lines and post them in plenty of time before each game’s start time.
What are NBA Point Spreads?
Point spreads are a way to bet on a sporting event without simply picking the winner. The reason for this is because sportsbooks like to keep things even. When a great team like the Warriors plays a bad team like the Magic, the money line on the game can be ridiculous. The Warriors might be a -800 favorite (meaning you’d have to bet $800 to win $100) while the Magic might be +900 (meaning you’d win $900 betting $100). That lacks a certain amount of appeal to potential bettors and thus point spreads can to be.
How point spreads work is simple. Take that same game and instead of the Warriors being -800, they would instead be Warriors -14. Meaning that you can bet the Warriors at close to even money, but they need to win by 15 or more points for you to win the bet. It’s a way of balancing the scales between home and away teams as well as the good and bad teams.
The line will vary from game to game and can even change multiple times during a day as bets pour in on one side or another.
Common NBA Point Spreads Questions:
How are the lines set?
Typically lines are set by first considering the home and away teams. There is a slight home court advantage in the NBA, worth about 2.33 points, so that team will usually be an automatic -2 before all other factors are considered.
They then look at which team has the better record, point differential and a myriad of other stats including their recent schedule including rest.
Of course, there are times when doing all this comes up with one number and the sportsbooks post another. That’s because they are a money making enterprise and want the lines that will most entice their customers.
Why do lines change?
Sometimes a game will open at one line and move to another line later in the day. To use an example, the Wolves are playing at Milwaukee and open as a +2.5 underdog. Later in that same day, the Bucks are a -4 favorite.
This happens for one of two reasons: new information or too much betting on one side. New information means that a star player might not be playing or a player previously thought to be out will actually play. Too much beting on one side would mean exactly what it sounds like. Too many people are betting the Bucks -2.5 so they move the line to enitce people to be the Wolves +4.
What is middling?
Middling is when you take a situation like the one we just laid out and bet it twice, hoping the line falls in the middle. So you’d bet the Bucks -2.5 and then later in the day you bet the Wolves +4. You would be hoping the Bucks win by 3 points to give you wins on both bets. If they don’t win by three, you’d still win one bet and lose a bit from the juice.
How to Bet NBA Point Spreads:
Bovada: After visiting the “Sports” section click on “Basketball” on the sidebar. This will bring up game lines and point spreads for that particular day. Note that this will cover all leagues with NBA being at the top. To just see the NBA section, click the “All Basketball” drop down at the top and choose “NBA”.
Sports Interaction: In the left sidebar click “Basketball” and then “NBA” once it expands. This will lost all game lines and point spreads for the NBA.
888: You can either just do a search for “NBA” in the top centre of the page or the specific game you’re looking for. Or you can click “NBA” in the left sidebar under “Popular”. This brings up all of the NBA games that day with the point spreads.
NBA Point Spread Betting Strategy:
One of the things to always keep track of when betting NBA Point Spreads is the recent schedule. The NBA schedule can be brutal at times and there are scheduled losses on the schedule if you know how to look for them. Three games in four nights is tough on an NBA team and five games in seven nights is absolutely brutal. You will often see adjusted lines for games like these so you need to use caution, but more often than not they can’t set the lines high enough on these games.
Home and road splits are also a good thing to keep an eye on. There is no real rhyme or reason as to why a team plays better at home, but it is a real thing that happens every season. Some teams just get it done on their home court while others really struggle away from home.
One final thing to look for is Net Rating, point differential and other stats that show you how teams have played throughout the season. A .500 team with a high Net Rating is due for some wins while a team with a great record, but bad counting stats might not be as good as they’ve played. There is a lot to keep an eye on when betting NBA point spreads so be sure to look at as much information as you can.
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