How to bet on basketball

Basketball is an exciting team sport. Due to some of its peculiarities, it is popular not only among spectators, but also among fans of betting on sports. Basketball is best suited for live betting, but it also lends itself to pre-match analytics. Today we will look at ways to analyze basketball events.

Why is basketball betting popular with professional bettors?

For starters, this is just interesting. Secondly, major tournaments are a full-fledged bigmarket, undeveloped by players. That is, there are the same attractive limits and margins as in football, but at the same time there is not so much competition. Consequently, more stable odds and less unnecessary attention from bookmakers. 

Thirdly, in basketball, the steps between points are very fine-tuned and you can check your bets with millimeter precision. And also - a bunch of useful statistics in the public domain, an increased percentage of victories for teams with high odds, bets on individual quarters and many other advantages.

How to analyze basketball

Today we will not analyze specific strategies, such as catching an outsider's victory in a quarter, quarter totals or catching overtime, but we will give basic information on how to analyze basketball in general. 

First of all, basketball analytics is about working with numbers. There are a lot of different statistics in basketball, especially in the American NBA and NCAA leagues. Americans are obsessed with statistics and keep them in great detail.

If you go to the official website of the NBA league nba.com, you can find deposits of a wide variety of statistics on the league, for each team and each player.

This site alone is enough to create a powerful analytical base for the NBA. But there are many other portals, as well as other leagues and competitions for which there are also similar resources.

Useful statistical portals for basketball betting:

• nba.com - a lot of statistics on the modern NBA; 

• espn.com - an entertainment and analytical portal containing many numbers and data on all North American leagues; 

• annabet.com is a statistical portal, incl. about basketball betting; 

• sofascore.com - statistics on dozens of basketball tournaments; 

• 24score.pro - very a useful portal, there are statistics for half and a quarter of any match, which allows you to successfully place bets on smallmarkets; 

• euroleague.net - the official website of the Euroleague, there is a section of tournament statistics; 

• basketball-reference.com is a very detailed statistics portal for the NBA, where you can delve into history almost from the very creation of the league.

Basketball betting: methods

There are three methods of betting on basketball: 

• Statistical strategies; 
• Trending strategies; 
• Line movement strategies.

Basketball Betting: A Statistical Strategy

This is the simplest, most straightforward and obvious method. Its essence is in working with numbers and identifying differences with what the bookmakers offer. Some programs offer this functionality - the program identifies the matches of the day with the greatest divergence from the lines. For example, if a team scores an average of 100 points per game over the season, and its individual total per match is offered in the region of 90 points, this is a very good signal for a bet on the "total over" outcome.

But not everything is so simple, bookmakers rarely deviate from the average values, most likely, in such a situation there are some prerequisites for the bottom - the leader's injury, which is not yet known, or just a match against a defensive grassroots team. Usually a deviation of 5% in major tournaments can already be considered a great success. 

To improve the accuracy of the statistical method, you need to consider as many factors as possible. That is, take into account not only the average points of the teams for the season, but also the average values ​​in the current conditions:

• Home / away matches; 
• Matches without a specific player; 
• Favorite / outsider matches; 
• Matches against the league leader / outsider; 
• Matches after a big rest / after yesterday games; 
• Matches against own / foreign conference or division.

Etc. All these points can be summed up and the arithmetic mean is displayed, which will be already more accurate than the average performance. 

The next level is the use of advanced statistics in the strategy, in particular, the attacking and defensive rating of teams in terms of 100 possessions. This is much more accurate information. You can also connect additional advanced analysis filters - box plus or minus, win shares, VORP, engagement percentages, Hollinger rating and much more.

How to start betting on statistics

Start moving from simple to complex. The simplest thing in statistical analysis is the individual total of players' indicators. The most important is the points in the match, you can bet on them in most offices. There are also block shots, rebounds, steals and assists. Such bets can also be found here and there, but the main thing is points per match. 

Compare the bookmaker's offers on players with their average seasonal performance. If there is a serious discrepancy somewhere (and 1-2 points in this market are already quite serious), then you can start digging further in an attempt to clarify the expected total. If the clarification widened the discrepancy even more, then the bet is appropriate. 

Then, move towards the individual totals of the team and the totals of different segments of the match - half, quarter, five minutes. Then you can try to work with the total totals for quarters and matches, and then extrapolate the experience gained to the handicap markets and the outcome of matches. Use auxiliary programs for analysis, at least the same Excel - a very useful program for working with statistics.

Basketball betting by trending strategy

These betting strategies are native to the United States and are not as well known to Russian sports betting enthusiasts. But overseas they are adored and actively used in the analysis of matches. The point is to identify trends in how teams play in a given situation with respect to the main bookmaker's odds and totals (where the odds are close to two). For European tournaments, such things are just beginning to appear, but in America there are a lot of such resources. 

For a start, three will suffice:

• teamrankings.com;
• covers.com;
• killersports.com

This is a screenshot of the teamrankings program, and you can see the teams most frequently hitting the odds offered by the bookmakers this season in the NBA. The Knicks have hit the most odds this season - 38, missed 21 and had a return once. 

What information does that give us? First, the bookmakers are underestimating the Knicks this season. Secondly, the fact that it is much more profitable to take their handicaps for matches than to play against them. It is also worth paying attention to the rightmost column - deviation from the bookmaker's handicap. The Knicks have the best, +4.3 points. That is, on average, they hit a handicap (or do not allow an opponent to break through) by 4.3 points less than the bookmakers planned. And 4.3 points in a league like the NBA is a huge difference. 

In the "Situation" menu you can see how teams play by handicaps, outcomes and totals in different game situations: home match, away match, away or home favorite / underdogs, after rest, versus conference, versus winning teams, regular season and playoffs, and much more. The portal also has a huge statistical database (there are also halves and quarters), which will help you place bets using the first method described.

Covers has a "matchups" section that features upcoming matches. There is a “Trends” tab, by clicking on which you can find a lot of useful information for betting on a match.

This is just a piece of it - ready-made trends of the Celtics team have already been specially selected for the match against Phoenix. From them we can conclude that Boston is very confident in playing the underdog (outsider), including at home. It can be seen that they are well tuned to strong teams, with a win percentage above 60%, and are playing well after a match in which they conceded a hundred points. 

On the same page there are trends in Phoenix odds, by comparing which, you can make a prediction about the fate of the upcoming game. There are also trends in personal meetings of these teams and a trend in relation to total (over total - less total). It is not uncommon for one team to have a lot of trends while the other is so-so. This situation can be considered a reason for betting. 

The third site, killersports, is the most difficult, but also the most interesting. There you can independently set conditions and view trends for them. With the help of the killer, you can identify generally iron coincidences that make it possible to make very likely bets.

How to start betting on trends

Again, move from simple to complex. Explore carpet matchup trends. Once you've spotted sets of polar trends, try multiple bets. In general, trends are a great auxiliary thing. When traditional analytics casts doubt, trend rates come to the rescue. At teamrankings, everything is on the shelves and you can find the information you need to bet in 15 seconds. 

When you understand how trends work, what percentage level you should pay attention to, then move on to studying the killer, this is just a treasure trends in North American sports.

Basketball Betting: Line Move Strategy

This method also comes from America and is not yet widely known in our country. Its essence is to make a bet, depending on certain tendencies associated with the behavior of the line before the match. In the USA, there are at least two large companies - betlab and sportsinsights - that are successfully developing the program of this type of betting. 

They offer a number of interesting trends in the public domain, for example: 

• A home favorite, playing at home for the third match or more, with over 70% wins, plays against a team from the opposite conference with 57% of the odds taken. 

• If more than 60% of the bets are loaded on the total, and the total value itself has decreased by one point or more, then the total can be bet less: the TM outcome is likely by 54.6%. 

• Away underdogs with a handicap of up to 6 points have more than 40% of victories in matches against their conference teams if they lost the last meeting. The bet on such teams provides ROI above 15% over the course of the last 16 seasons. 

And there are many similar calculations. Moreover, in the paid access, you can independently enter different conditions and identify profitable trends associated with the movement of the line. You can, of course, identify them yourself, peering into the lines for hours, but there is an option to get all this functionality for money. 

True, such services are not cheap, about $ 1000 for an annual subscription. This option is suitable for advanced players who want to develop in betting, know that they will bet a lot, and realized that such functionality will increase their ROI and greatly simplify their life.

Conclusion 

We hope we have cleared up the picture of a professional analysis of basketball lines and basketball bets for you. Try to start small, focusing on one league. NBA is best, but others will do as well. Watch matches and analytical programs, read forecasts and press. 

Gradually, month after month, you will increase your knowledge of a particular championship. Over time, you will find that you understand it better than most bookmakers and make your predictions more and more accurate. Then the time will come to harvest.