NBA Basketball Betting

As wrapped up as the NBA is in images of power, money and ego, it's only natural that wagering seems to go hand-in-hand with America's favorite indoor game. Betting on basketball excites many of the same feelings that arise in the athletes who actually play the game. You don't have to be 6'7" anymore to earn money, swagger and trash-talk all of your colleagues.

Betting in professional basketball is similar to other major team sports such as football. The classic wager involves betting against the spread, the number of points by which the presumed better team is favored. If you bet $100 dollars on a team to win by seven points, a final outcome in which your team wins by six is of no use to you. The spread's purpose is to even out the betting as much as possible, with ideally half of the money being bet on either team.

Foul Lines and Money Lines

The money line is in play for NBA betting as well, allowing bettors to simply pick the winner regardless of points. Rather than the points evening out the betting field, this is accomplished by adjusting the amount of money paid out to winners. Betting $220 to win $100 is a common money line bet, with the extra $20 representing the 10 percent juice that the sports book collects.

Proposition bets are popular in NBA wagering as well, such as betting on the amount of points Shaq scores or whether the Kings will win the championship. The over/under is another mainstay of basketball betting, in which bets hinge on the total number of points scored by both teams. The number of games played and the variety of bets available makes betting on the NBA a popular pastime for countless of sports fans.