NBA Betting Strategy Guide

Betting on NBA basketball is becoming more and more common. One way to set yourself apart from other NBA bettors is to use the right betting system.

NBA betting systems help players pick the right wagers to make on any given game. They can help you make a ton of money by substantially increasing your win rate.

Our experts have made their livelihoods as advantage bettors for years. They’re happy to share their insights and expertise to give you helpful strategies to improve your NBA betting prospects.

The strategies we cover in this NBA betting guide are:

1. Bankroll management
2. Using injury reports and rest management
3. Schedule tracking
4. Using safe NBA sportsbooks
5. Reading the bookmaker
6. Finding shaded lines
7. Fading the public
8. Using live betting odds

NBA Betting Basics

Basic skills and strategies lay the groundwork for solid and informed NBA betting. You might find some of these tips to be obvious, but simple disciplines go a long way.

The tips in this section can be applied to most other forms of sports betting. But they are listed here because of their unique value in betting on the NBA.

Make a Bankroll Management Plan

If you want to be able to gamble consistently and win, you have to have some basic bankroll management.

How you keep tabs on your betting bankroll is up to you. But NBA betting can be very intensive, and there is a lot of action to be had each night.

To keep from hemorrhaging cash in a short amount of time, you want to have a good plan for what your overall bankroll is. Your standard bet will be based on the balance of your bankroll.

Keeping an eye on your bankroll will help keep you from going off the rails with huge bets that could cripple you if they miss. You’ll also be more likely to avoid the temptation of chasing losses.

Research Injury Reports and Rest Management

No one likes losing their wagers. But the sting of losing is made significantly worse when you find out a star player from your team did not even suit up.

Not only do you feel like a square for losing, but you feel regret because you know you could have made a better decision simply by checking out the injury updates.

Load management is more common than ever and this kind of stuff happens all the time. It’s just a black hole for your bankroll. Please make sure you’re staying up to the minute on personal news when betting.

In addition to knowing who’s in or out of a game, make sure you have the latest injury updates on people who are playing. Minute restrictions and injuries can severely limit a player’s production.

Injury news about players often doesn’t break until very close to game time – sometimes mere minutes before tip-off! You must stay apprised of injuries or other happenings all the way to game time. Our advice to you is to place your bet as close to tip-off as you can.

When news breaks, it takes time for books to adjust the lines and the sharks take advantage of this. The fish miss out or get eaten alive because they didn’t know the facts. Don’t be a fish; be a shark.

Keep an Eye on the Schedule

The premise is simple; teams don’t perform as well when they’re fatigued as they do when they’re fresh. Much like the injury tracking above, it’s also good common sense to make sure your betting horse isn’t limping into the arena on tired legs.

Schedule tracking is looking at a team’s schedule and looking for rough patches. The hope is that for these particular games, the betting line fails to reflect this crucial factoid, and a team is overvalued. When this happens, bettors can get great value by betting against that team.

This is especially valuable for teams that the betting public likes no matter the opponent. Sportsbooks have to keep the lines high to keep their action balanced.

Some common scheduling issues to look for are teams that are:

• Playing on back-to-back nights
• In the midst of a lengthy road trip
• Playing 3 games in 4 nights
• Coming off recent overtime games

However, simply finding a team with a tough schedule is not enough to guarantee a profit on your play. The bookmakers now know that this kind of money will come in big, and they’ve adjusted accordingly.

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Using a trusted NBA betting site is another important part of getting off on the right foot. The best basketball sportsbooks have competitive odds and a variety of betting markets. They are also safe to use, so you can place wagers without worrying about your personal information being stolen.

NBA Betting Systems to Gain an Edge

Betting systems can also help give you an edge over the average NBA bettor. A betting system is a pre-planned strategy that helps to sway the edge toward the player. This often involves looking at statistics and finding hidden mismatches between teams.

Accounting for things like games played and a team’s recent results can give you a huge advantage. Any system that consistently gives you positive returns over 50% of the time is a winning system.

There are other methods for getting ahead as well. Some other common tactics include:

• Reading the bookmaker
• Finding shaded lines
• Fading the public
• Using live betting odds

Read the Bookmaker

Learning to think about the bookmaker’s intentions when putting out a line is definitely one of those “separator” skills. It’s one of those defining betting skills that separate the consistently profitable pros from the losing recreational bettors.

Many bettors feel inclined to bet on the home team in true coin-flip situations. Bettors also tend to believe that a team will likely win by more than one point.

Bookmakers capitalize on these common perceptions by putting pick’em games out at Home Team (-1) or (-1.5). This forces the public to pay a premium for their habit. They’ll also put out Home Team (-1) opening lines even if the home team should open as a 1-point underdog.

If public perception is that the game is a flip, the bookmakers know they’re going to receive more bets on the home team. Therefore, they want that side of the action to pay the vig so they make their profit on the percentages in the long run.

And overall, they do just that. So long as the game outcomes fall on the 50/50 line, they make money. You profit in this scenario by avoiding the trap of hammering what you think is a betting favorite only laying a point at home.

Find the Shaded Lines

“Line shading” is a term referring to when a bookmaker anticipates heavy betting action on one side of a matchup. When this happens, the sportsbook will move an opening betting line toward that side.

In scenarios like these, the value play is often to bet against the shaded line and take advantage of those underdog points. Both the books and the sophisticated bettors know that the line has been swung to disfavor a cover by the Celtics.

The only downside with this sort of play is that it is based on short-term perceptions, so you can’t really plan for it. The only real way to find these opportunities is to keep up with NBA news and events.

A big part of finding a shaded line is to try to find out if the book is trying to encourage or discourage action on a certain side. The best way to do that is to stay informed.

Fade the Public

Fading the public is a term used to describe bettors who go against public opinion. When lots of money pours in on one side of the line, sportsbooks adjust the line to try and get even money on both sides. This allows opportunistic bettors to get improved lines that can give them an advantage.

So, if everyone is favoring team A, you would bet against them if you wanted to fade the public. Betting against the public is a great intuition to have, and just by embracing it, you will find yourself sniffing out inflated lines.

Our tip to you is just to make sure you don’t overdo it. It’s nice to have the skill and the fortitude to go the other way when it’s the right play, but make sure it’s the right play.

It’s not enough to find the public’s money and go the other way. You still need to make sure you combine your plays against the grain with other supplemental factors. For example, you should consider inflated lines and scheduling trends.

Take Advantage of NBA Live Betting

Live betting on NBA games is another popular basketball betting method. One popular strategy for live betting on games is called middling.

The term “middle” or “middling” refers to instances where swings in the betting lines allow players to bet both sides of a game and potentially win both bets.

This may sound like free money, but there is risk involved. While one of your bets will come through, if both don’t, you will be a slight loser by paying the vig to the house. Make sure you’re aware of the probabilities versus the price before deciding to take a middle.

You can use a middling strategy even after the game has already started. Let’s say you’ve already wagered on an NBA game, and then the first half results in a blowout for one side.

In this scenario, you already have an 18-point cushion for your (+3) bet on Detroit.

Let’s say you bet Chicago to cover the (-6) in the second half. Chicago can win the half by anywhere between 7 and 18 points and both of your bets will get paid. You now have an 11-point range where both bets will win.

Look for opportunities like these and crush the books when you can. It’s a winning play that’s yet to be corrected in the betting markets.

The best way to take advantage of this play is to use multiple safe betting sites. It allows you to line shop all over the world and increase your chances of finding these great plays.

NBA Betting Strategy: Keep The Edge

Once you have some solid betting strategies to wield, it’s great to see good results come in. Staying ahead, however, means never being complacent and always looking for ways to improve your betting system.

Track Your Bets by Team; Consider Specializing

Every bettor has strengths and weaknesses in their game. Some of it is just natural. For instance, time zones alone can determine what teams a person sees more often than others.

When you bet on a game, you’re betting on the performance of both the winning and losing teams. If you find that you’re crushing your bets on one team and whiffing more often than you’d like on others, take a step back and ask yourself why.

Hopefully, you’ll reach the desired effect and find out if and where you might be weak in your observation of certain teams. Then you’ll know exactly where you must either improve your analysis or just save some of those losing bets.

If you find that you’re consistently doing well with a certain group of teams, consider specializing your bets in games involving those teams. You’ll have fewer betting opportunities but focusing on just a few teams can help you win more consistently.

Track Your Results by Bet Type

You certainly want to keep good records of your results no matter what sport you’re betting on. It’s the mark of a good handicapper. But we think it’s particularly important to track your NBA bets by bet type.

By bet type, we primarily mean tracking your bets by:

• Spreads vs. money lines
• Straight bets vs. parlays (and if parlays, how many legs)
• Full-game bets vs. 1st/2nd half bets or bets on quarters

These are just the most basic examples. You can track your bets by any kind of pattern that you think is worth a second look. The most important thing is that you actually do it.

Tracking bets will help you make sure that each type of bet you put down is making you money. Then, you can focus on the bet types that perform well for you.

NBA Betting Strategy FAQs