Can You Make a Living by Betting on NBA in 2018?

Many sports betting fans would tell you that basketball is a simple game and betting on NBA events does not require a lot of preparation or deep understanding. But while most sports do seem rather simple, successfully predicting the outcome of games can be very challenging, especially if you want to do it in a sustainable and profitable way.

Each season of the National Basketball Association (NBA) starts in October and a total of 82 games are being played until the Finals in June. There may not be so many events throughout the year, but due to the dynamic nature of basket and the schedule, beginners and even experienced bettors often find it hard to keep up with all the changes. And this is key to the successful betting on NBA. This year, for example, bettors have already started betting on the 2018-2019 season but the odds shifted significantly after LeBron James decided to join the Los Angeles Lakers.

This is just one example that shows how important news and statistics actually are when betting on sports. After all, every bettor’s first goal should be making a profit with their hobby. There are a few things punters should keep in mind if they wish to make a living by betting on NBA this year.

Understanding the Bet Types

In order to make a profit when betting on NBA, you must first find good odds but without understanding the types of bets, or the markets, as they are already known, this would be impossible. The most common bet is the money line, an outright market where you bet on a team at some given odds. There are also first quarter and first half money lines, where you bet on the team that would be leading the game at the end of the first quarter and at the first half, respectively.

Another extremely popular way to wager on NBA events is a handicap or spread betting. With the spread, you have two options – to bet on the favorite to win by more than the set number of points or to bet on the underdog, which needs to either win or lose by less than the spread. For instance, if a team is (-10.5), you will win only if it wins the game by more than 10.5 points, which is at least 11 points. There are also point spread bets for the first half and the first quarter. The other common type of bet is the total, also referred to as over/under bet, which includes the total number of points won by the two teams.

The next step is to understand the odds – usually, they would be displayed in American format. Either a minus or a plus sign is attached to the odds, indicating the amount of the stake needed to win $100 or the amount you would potentially win with a bet of $100. In other words, odds of +100 (or simply 100) are an even bet, where -200 indicate that the favorite team has a probability of winning of 1 in 1.5 or 67%. Odds of +200 on the underdog mean that the probability of winning is 1 in 3 or 33%.

Staying Up to Date with NBA News

Many basketball betting fans avoid wagering on games early in the season because usually, there are a lot of changes in the teams and plenty of surprises. As it progresses, however, bettors can gather more information from 100BettingSites as there are detailed statistics on virtually anything. You should track teams’ travel schedules and compare their home or road status with their wins or losses. Of course, home teams tend to perform better, but historical data will show you how much better each individual team has performed at home.

Another key aspect of being informed is keeping track of the injuries, how serious they are, how important the player is, and when exactly during the season an injury has taken place. Injuries, especially big ones, can often lead to a dramatic shift in the lines.

Employing a Betting Strategy

Punters who have a good understanding of the game and the odds and are interested in updates from the NBA (and there are a lot of them), can start thinking of a strategy. If they want to be profitable in the long run, however, they should forget about the different betting systems where you need to double your bet after each loss, for example, as in the Martingale system. Actually, sports betting is skill oriented and in order to make a profit, you need to be able to spot the value in odds.

Now, this might be too hard for most punters as value betting is finding the odds that were underestimated by the bookmaker and using them to your advantage. In other words, you need to be able to notice when odds are not priced as they should have been. For instance, most top teams would not be able to keep their great performance for a long time, no matter how good they are. Recreational bettors and the general public will continue to back them up, nevertheless. The reason is simple – the team is famous and it consists of only NBA stars. And the greater the interest for the team, the less profitable the odds are for you.

In order to find value and profit, bettors should track the performance of all teams and players as much they could, to know the stats and the injuries (if they are publicized at all). Of course, it is also a great idea to use professional help from tipsters, but they can make mistakes, too. Those who wish to bet on the NBA and make a living from it will need to learn to rely on their own knowledge, skills, and opinions.