The stage doesn’t get any bigger in basketball than the NBA with its show-stopping buzzer-beating highlight-reel moments, long seasons, superstars and of course the great basketball betting opportunities that it presents to punters.
NBA odds cover a lot of different aspects of the sport from pre-season futures, to match winners and even live betting. The NBA is where basketball dreams are made and for sports betting, it can provide some nail-biting moments.
There are plenty of different ways to bet on the NBA action and the area of futures is extremely popular. That’s because it is an approachable way to dig into basketball betting.
Plus, making the correct call of who that season’s NBA Champions are going to be before a single minute of action has been played, rewards with some major bragging rights!
Popular NBA futures for basketball betting include the big one, which is naming the NBA Champions. But there are a lot of other pre-season futures calls to be made as well, such as Divisional and Conference winners as teams battle to reach the NBA Playoffs.
Plus there are futures on players as well, like who will be the Regular Season MVP.
Betting the spread on an NBA match is an approach some punters take when they may not see enough value in the match outright. That’s fairly common because more often than not there is a strong favorite on the basketball money line.
But spread betting, which is a form of handicapping, focuses on the points margin at the end of an NBA match. It’s an exciting approach and NBA spreads are hugely popular.
A team with a - (minus) spread will have to win the match by more than the set spread that a punter has taken. So if it’s a -10 Spread bet, the team would have to win by 11 points. If an underdog + (plus) Spread Bet is taken, then the team would have to lose by no more than that number.
There’s no difference in betting on NBA odds for a regular-season match to one that comes from the NBA Playoffs. There is, of course, a lot more pressure on teams when the playoff bracket starts, but it is also the time when basketball betting can turn to new options like a Series Winner.
Teams drawn together in the NBA playoff bracket don’t just play one game. They are the best of seven matches. So from a betting perspective, this is a thrilling time because it's possible to not only pick the winner of a series, but also the correct score for that series, such as a 4-2 Series Correct Score for the Toronto Raptors.
There is a lot to look forward to when the bracket for the postseason in the NBA is finally all filled. That’s because it comes at the end of a long regular season, but it’s also the point at which the season becomes a whole lot more intense and exciting.
Prop bets offer some different angles for punters on NBA odds. For example, it could be striking a bet on the first team to reach 20 points, Odds or Even Total Points, or the Over/Under on the Total Points & Rebounds for an individual player. Prop bets are generally played as extra bets and are not as popular as the NBA money line and NBA spreads.
There are four quarters in an NBA match and each of those quarters lasts for 12 minutes. But there are a lot of stoppages in a basketball match, so from the tip-off to the final buzzer takes a lot longer than the 48 scheduled minutes. Betting on the winner of a Quarter or a Quarter Spread is common in basketball betting.
Yes, and as there are regular pauses within an NBA match, it’s a good sport, therefore, when it comes to live betting. There are markets such as Race to 30 points, or which team will score the # point of the match.
Lines simply refers to the basketball betting odds on a money line for a match. It’s the simplest form of sports betting and for NBA odds, punters can pull several different money lines together into a Parlay.
| League | National Basketball Association (NBA) |
| No. of teams | 30 |
| Most titles | Boston Celtics (17) Los Angeles Lakers (17) |
| Countries | United States (29 teams) Canada (1 team) |
| Founded | 1946 |