Basketball Betting Today – Bet On NBA Online

Basketball is a popular sport in North America that involves two teams competing for the most points during a game and there are tons of NBA betting lines available.  A game consists of four 15 minute quarters in which the goal is for the team to score as many points as possible against the other team.  The game is played on a court which is a large wood surface with one net on either side representing each teams net during play (sides are switched after half time/2 quarters).  

Point scoring has two options, a regular basket counts as 2 points and a basket from behind the 3 point line counts as 3 points.  If a player is fouled during the game, they will be given a two shots from the foul line which each count as 1 point each.  At any given time there will be 13 people on the court during the game including 3 referees as well as 5 players from each team.  The five different positions in the are as follows – Point Guard, Shooting Guard, Small Forward, Power Forward and Center who are all on the court in play.

Best Online Basketball Betting Sites

How To Bet On Basketball

When it comes to Basketball betting there are three main types of wagers that are offered by the major sports betting sites.  These include spread bets, moneyline bets and over/under bets that can be made on professional basketball games played around the world .  Below we’ve outlined each bet with an example of how you would make each particular wager and what the respective payouts would be for the bet made. The examples apply to betting on NBA, as well as betting on basketball games that take place in other countries.

• Spread: Spread bets are the most commonly found type of wagers made on Basketball games and with this wager you are betting on a particular team to win by a certain number of points.  For example, team one might have a a spread of -4.5 which means that team one is a favourite to win the game by at least 4.5 points.  Betting on spreads pays even money minus a commission so you are simply picking if you think the team can do it or not.  Betting for the spread would mean that you believe that team one is going to win the game by 4.5 points and betting against it would mean you think that they’ll win by less than 4.5 points.
• Moneyline: Another very popular basketball bet is the moneyline bet where you pick an outright winner of each match based on your predictions.  Odds for the moneyline in Basketball use American odds so you will see a +/- for the given odds on a game.  For example in a game the odds may be -185 for team one and +140 for team two.  This would mean you’d need to risk $185 to win $100 on team one and if you bet $100 on team two you would win $140, but they are the underdogs hence the bigger payout.
• Over/Under: The last type of wager you can make when you bet on NBA online is the over/under where you are predicting the total amount of points in the game. O/U will look something like this, Over 105 -150, Under 105 +200 which means you’d need to risk $150 on over 105 to win $100 and betting $100 on under 105 would win $200.  Over/Under is particularly entertaining in Basketball games since the scores usually get quite high in play.

Major Basketball Events

All of the major events in Basketball are held in the United States under the organization and regulation of the National Basketball Association (NBA) as well as the  National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).  Throughout the season, there are four major tournament series that take place with competitors from the professional league and college basketball leagues from the USA, the details of which we’ve outlined below:

• NCAA March Madness: March Madness is a tournament series that consists of a 68 team bracket playing for the chance to advance to the final four (the best 4 teams from each region).  Of the 68 teams, 31 get automatic bids into March Madness based on conference championship games in their respective leagues.  The rest of the teams are selected through the NCAA selection committee based on track record, standing and several other factors.  March Madness was founded in 1992 and is the biggest College Basketball event in the country with millions of fans throughout the continental United States.
• Final Four: The Final Four tournament is essentially the culmination of March Madness whereby the best four teams compete to become champion of the series.  The Final Four is one played over a weekend ending on a Monday each year and is one of the most watched games broadcasted in the United States.
• NBA All-Star Game: The NBA All-Star Game as the name suggest brings together the best talent from both the Eastern Conference and Western Conference teams in the NBA.  Players are selected to play in the game through fan ballot voting and reserve players are chosen by a group of coaches.  Founded in 1951, the All-Star Game is a one game match that is extremely popular with fans and showcases some of the best players from within the league.  Another cool feature about the All-Star game is the fact that players are usually out of position since starting spots are based on votes cast by the fans to determine position.
• NBA Championship: This is the culmination of the regular season in the NBA and features qualifying, quarter final and semi final rounds before the championship series.  All of the series are played in a best of 7 format with the final two teams competing for the Championship trophy at the end of each season.  The NBA Championship was started in 1947 & is the oldest tournament in the National Basketball League.

History of Basketball

Although games similar to Basketball are believed to date back to the time of the Aztecs the modern form of the game as we know it today was created in 1891 by James Naismith.  The Canadian began work on the game in 1891 when asked to create an indoor game that could alleviate some of the bore of a long and cold Canadian winter. 

The result was the game of Basketball, the first game of which took place in on December 21, 1891 with 18 players including a mix of teachers and students.  After its inception, the game was spread in Europe, Canada and the USA primarily due to YMCA who adopted and promoted the game in their facilities worldwide.  Another contributing factor was the US army who started using the game to boost the moral of soldiers throughout the first World War. 

In 1898 the first professional Basketball league was founded consisting of six teams, this was followed by the Eastern Basketball League in 1909, the Metropolitan Basketball League in 1921, the American Basketball League in 1925 and finally the National Basketball Association on June 6th, 1946 which has remained the main regulator body of the leagues to this day.