Best strategies for successful basketball betting

The NBA season is long and arduous and while the table will tell you who has the best record, that doesn’t guarantee they’ll beat the team with the worst record on any given night.

Not only that, there’s a big difference between winning a match and covering the point spread, so stick with Planet Sport and we’ll walk you through how to make money betting on basketball.

 

Basketball markets to bet on

There are four main types of markets when betting on basketball: Moneyline (match winner), point spread (handicap), total (over/under), and prop bets.

The moneyline refers to which team you think will win and works the same as any other two-way market. It also includes overtime.

The point spread can be likened to handicap betting in football, meaning a team that is a -4.5 favourite must overcome that -4.5 deficit and win by at least five points, whereas a +4.5 underdog is effectively given a 4.5 point headstart which they must preserve.

Total betting refers to the number of points that are scored in the match, while prop betting allows you to take advantage of player matchups and bet on an individual to record a certain number of points, assists, rebounds, turnovers or steals.

 

Managing your bankroll

Before we get into how to make money from betting on the NBA, it’s important to have a sensible financial plan in place to limit risk.

It’s always wise to set a budget, also known as a betting bank, so you don’t mix your betting funds and personal funds. Never bet the money you are planning on paying your bills with.

The most sensible staking plans involve assigning a monetary value to one unit and making that your set stake regardless of what happens.

You need to make sure you have a suitable size bank to roll with the punches and absorb losses.

You may decide you’re going to start betting with £500, so a sensible approach would be making your set stake £10. That means you have a betting bank of 50 units and stake one unit per bet.

A method that means you’ll never run out of funds is the bankroll method. If you start with £500 and decide you’re going to bet a set amount, typically 1% to 5%, your bets will increase and decrease as your bank increases and decreases.

This will reduce your exposure during a losing run while allowing you to take advantage during a winning run. If you can find a successful formula in the long run, your bank and profits will continue to grow.

 

Studying recent form

While picking winners isn’t as simple as backing the teams that are in form or out of form, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

It pays to know if the Los Angeles Lakers have won their last five matches, particularly if they’re blowing teams out and winning by 10+ points night after night.

It’s also useful to know that the Washington Wizards are on an extended losing streak, yet have a habit of keeping games competitive and tend to lose by one to five points.

There are always underlying reasons for form so it’s worth keeping a close eye on every team's peaks and troughs throughout the NBA season.

 

Team news and injury reports

Another basic yet crucial starting point is knowing what players are available to play on a day-to-day basis. Just because LeBron James suited up on Wednesday, it doesn’t mean he’ll play on Thursday.

Teams regularly afford players rest in different situations, particularly if they’re playing on back-to-back nights and have some injury-prone players.

The physical nature of basketball also means players are susceptible to bumps and bruises that can happen at any given time and may keep them out of the next game, so just because someone isn’t nursing a serious injury, don’t assume they’ll be in the lineup.

On the flip side, injuries present you with an opportunity to consider how this may impact the affected team and how it may change the betting market.

Betting odds, point spreads and totals are in part based on the underlying numbers from a team’s season so far and the players they have available.

If a star player goes down with an injury, the bookmakers will attempt to adjust the number to account for that, but that isn’t an easy thing to do and can lead to a point spread being too big or too small.

If you think the bookmaker hasn’t moved the point spread enough to account for the absent player, there may be an opportunity to take advantage.

 

Team schedules

Schedules are important because they offer us an idea of what to expect from teams in specific situations, such as playing on back-to-back nights, after an extended rest, or the final game of a long road trip.

It’s safe to assume that playing on back-to-back nights takes a physical toll on teams, though the bookmakers will try to reflect that in their odds and spreads.

However, there’s a big difference between playing a home game on consecutive nights and flying halfway across the United States to play in the altitude of Denver or Utah.

Tiredness in those situations is a major factor in the outcome, but bookmakers can only adjust the point spread so much or they risk offering value to the underdog.

Sometimes in these situations, a team can come out completely flat and lose by a huge margin, which you may be able to forecast based on their past behaviour.

One of the best ways to tackle the schedule is to look ahead and identify when a team is playing a back-to-back, three games in four days, or five games in eight days. You can mark these dates on your calendar and monitor how they progress through that tough period.

At the other end of the spectrum is extended rest. Some teams only do well when they’re in the rhythm of playing games and to enjoy three days of rest may derail that momentum.

We can also consider how teams fare at home versus on the road, and how they react to an extended road trip, which may involve being away from home for up to a week and playing in three or four different cities.

 

Using ATS trends

ATS means 'against the spread' and refers to how a team is performing against the bookmaker’s point spread.

SU means 'straight up' and refers to a team’s win-loss record, while their ATS record shows you how many times they’ve covered the point spread.

At 64-18SU, the Boston Celtics posted the best record in the NBA across the 2023/24 season.

However, they were just 51-44-6ATS, which may suggest they’re a winning team with the potential to be overvalued by the bookmakers.

On the flip side, the Portland Trail Blazers owned the worst record in the Western Conference at 21-61 SU, yet they went 39-41-2ATS despite being the underdog in 76 of 82 games.

There are all sorts of stats on how a team performs as a favourite, an underdog, at home, on the road, against teams from their own or the opposite conference, after a win, a loss, in certain rest situations, and much, much more.

Websites such as Team Rankings, Oddsshark, EV Analytics, and Covers are a few examples of sites where you can find such information.

You may also be able to pick up some more complex ATS trends that relate to all teams in specific situations over the years, which you may find in expert betting previews on sites such as Covers, Betfirm, or Vegas Insiders.

For example, it’s been the case for an extended period that when two losing teams winning fewer than 40% of their games meet, the road team covers the point spread around 56% of the time when the point spread is between 0.5 and 4.5 points in favour of either team.

 

Prop betting

Prop betting involves betting on an individual player’s performance. This can be how many points they score, assists they provide, rebounds they claim, the number of three-point shots they take and so much more.

The benefit of prop betting is that it doesn’t necessarily affect the outcome of a match. A team may have a bad night, but their best player could still score 30+ points.

Every player has season averages in categories such as points scored, shots made and attempted, assists, rebounds and much more. You can find these stats on Google or the NBA website.

Bookmakers will set each player's lines for each game based loosely on their averages.

For example, Steph Curry averages 30 points per game so the bookmakers set his line at 30.5 points. If he scores 30 or under, that’s under the total. If he scores 31 or more, that’s over the total.

There are all sorts of advanced stats on websites such as Cleaning The Glass, which may alert you to the fact that Steph, as a sharp three-point shooter, may excel against a specific team because they’re poor at defending three-point shots.

Another good example of a player mismatch could be Giannis Antetekounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks going up against a team with a smaller-than-average centre.

In this scenario, Giannis is likely to take advantage and could score more than his season average, score a lot of points in the paint, or dominate the glass and pull in more rebounds than usual.