NBA Picks (Today's Predictions, Tips, Parlays) Here you will find the best NBA picks as well as parlays for all of today's games. All of our expert NBA predictions are against the spread. $100,000 to win $206,000 on two-team parlay including Cardinals over 7.5 and Athletics -189 (9/10/20) Biggest single-game parlay winner of 2020 $10 to win $15,000 on a 10-team Build-a-Bet parlay (12/27/20).
NBA Picks and Parlays – Among sports bettors, only football is more popular than basketball. Like football, the most common hoops wagers are point spread bets.
The early history of basketball has some ties to sports betting. In the early 1950′s, there was a major point-shaving scandal in college basketball involving the University of Kentucky.
In the days long before the NCAA basketball tournament became a huge sporting event, the scandal was significant because Kentucky was one of the elite programs in college hoops.
In the 1950′s, the NBA was also in its early stages. A decade later, pro and college hoops experienced some growth.
However, basketball was still behind baseball in popularity. Football’s popularity grew rapidly in the 1960′s as well to put basketball in the third spot among popular sports.
While basketball’s growth lagged in the 1970′s, the sport was about to take off in the 1980′s.
The launch of ESPN and other sports cable television networks came along at the perfect time for pro and college hoops. The NBA had a couple of new star players to build its league around in the early 1980′s.
Earvin “Magic” Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers and Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics would dominate the decade.
The expanded TV coverage enabled fans and bettors to see more NBA action than ever before. In college basketball, the concept of March Madness was about to take off.
The expansion of the NCAA basketball tourney led to the entire tournament being telecast by CBS beginning in 1981. These developments in the 1980′s have carried basketball’s popularity into the present day. Only the Super Bowl surpasses the first four days of the NCAA basketball tournament among sports betting events.
Basketball Betting Basics
As mentioned earlier, the most popular basketball bets are point spread wagers. Because basketball is the highest scoring major sport, the point spread enables bookmakers to provide a leveling wagering number for bettors to evaluate.
Typical NBA games will have between 190 and 210 points while college hoops contests will have well over 100 points scored in a standard game. Here is what a typical NBA line might look like:
Lakers (+2)
Celtics (-2)
As the favored team, Boston would need to win by three points or more for the bettor to win his bet. If Los Angeles is bet, the Lakers must win the game or lose by just a single point for the bettor to win.
Totals or over/under bets are the next most popular in basketball. In these type of wagers, the bookmaker sets a number related to the projected number of total combined points that the two basketball squads will score in the game.
The bettor then wagers on whether the total points scored will be over or under the posted total that was set by the bookmaker.
Money line or straight bets can also be placed on pro and college basketball games. In these wagers, the bet is simply on which team will win the game without any regard to the margin of victory.
While pro and college basketball games have many similarities, there are some differences that bettors need to be aware of. The NBA regular season is a grind. 30 teams play 82 games in a span of less than six months.
Because the majority of NBA teams end up making the playoffs, the regular season action lacks some urgency. Bettors need to focus on the schedules of teams to spot some potential advantages.
Teams can get worn down on extensive road swings or when they have to play on consecutive nights. Once the playoffs start, the intensity is turned up to another level.
For most postseason games, the over/under totals will be lower than in the regular season. While many teams might play some passive defense in the regular season, these same clubs will contest every shot in the playoffs.
College basketball’s season is basically broken down into three stages.
In November and December, teams will begin their seasons with non-conference action. Clubs are in the process of finding themselves at this point.
In January and February, conference play begins. In these contests, the action is usually a lot more intense. There are several rivalry games that feature passionate home fans.
Finally, there are the conference tourneys and the NCAA tournament. These games are played on neutral floors which is a change from most of the regular season.
The growth of online sportsbooks has given basketball bettors some expanded options when it comes to wagering on a game. Bettors can wager on all four quarters of an NBA game.
Many online sportsbooks have player props for pro and college basketball games. In these types of bets, the book might set odds on how a couple of the top players on each squad will fare against each other in terms of points scored.
There are even some online books that offer live betting on pro and college basketball games. Once the games tip-off, the books will offer in-progress lines at various points throughout the game.
As a new decade is getting underway, the future of basketball betting should continue to evolve.
NBA Picks & Parlays
Free Picks for NBA and Parlays from a round-up of experts to help you win more money. We use key tools and data-driven analysis for Arbitrage opportunities.
NBA Betting is the next popular sports activity after the NFL and during the season which runs from October to June, many wagers are placed on the sport. Here at bettinghits.com, we provide daily NBA Predictions for all the games played during the season.
As you know NBA Parlays can be very lucrative because of their high odds since one only has to hit a combo of parlays and the higher the combo of things that have to go just right, the more money one makes on a wager so its very advisable to check out our free NBA Picks on Parlays.
NBA ODDS
Every BookMaker has its own set of algorithms that spit out NBA ODDS. These are based on their own programmed sets of criteria and one set of NBA ODDS from one bookie do not necessarily match with another company and this is where arbitrage betting opportunities usually come from.
For those unfamiliar, arbitrage betting is a system of taking advantage of bookmaker odds to eliminate the risk associated with a particular wager to the point where it becomes a sure bet.
NBA Arbitrage betting requires a scan of several bookmakers to see how certain matches odds are placed. For example, if the Lakers are Playing Houston and BookMaker has Lakers winning the game with odds of 2.10 and Houston getting ODDS of 2.90 and BookMaker B has Houston winning at ODDS 2.15 and Lakers Winning with ODDS of 2.50. This means a $10 bet placed on Lakers winning at bookmaker A will yield $21 and a $10 wager placed on Bookmaker B on Houston winning will yield $21.50. Now in all essence, someone has to win this game and a smart bettor would bet $5 on bookmaker A for the Lakers to win and $5 on bookmaker B for Houston to win thus guaranteeing they would win this bet no matter the outcome.
NBA Spreads
What is NBA Betting Spreads?
An NBA Spread is basically a wager on how much a team will win by. It is commonly referred to as an NBA points spread betting as well. As with our earlier example of the Lakers vs Houston, there is a favorite vs the underdog and a point spread is determined between the two as shown in the table below.
| Team | Spread before kick off | final Score |
|---|---|---|
| Lakers | +3 | 102 |
| Rockets | -3 | 101 |
The winning team “lays” the spread against the underdog in this case as the example above, the spread is 3 so let’s run down a spreads bet.
If your wager is on the Lakers, it means that they have to win by 3 points or more for you to win the bet and vice versa, if you are betting on Houston then they have to lose by 3 points or more. Based on the standard 110 lines, a bet of $110 on either win would pay out a $100 profit.
Money Lines in the NBA
The standard money line for NBA Spreads is (-110) unless specifically specified. So basically it means that if you bet $110 against either of the teams, you will receive $100 profit back from the bet at minimum. In our example above, if you bet the Rockets -3 you would win the $100 profit since they only lost by 1 point in the actual game final score.
What is the Push in NBA point Spreads Betting?
In NBA Betting Spreads most commonly you will find a spread of +3.5 or -3.5 and it can be quite confusing because there is no half-point added during a regular game of basketball which is where the push comes in. Bookies have to add the half-point because sometimes the outcome of the game is exactly the spread which in this example would be the Lakers winning 100-97 and since the spread is 3 points, the bookie would be forced to return all the wagers placed in such instances so to prevent that, they add the half-point to the line.
NBA Picks against the spread.
While betting the spread in the NBA is common, betting against the spread is equally as common and is one of the favorite winners of many bets. As it states, betting against the spreads simply means placing a wager against a given spread, so if the spread is +3 as in our Lakers vs Houston example, then one has to just bet against this happening to win.
College Basketball Parlay Today
Free NBA Picks and Parlays in the Playoffs
The format of the NBA Playoffs is unlike any other, A team has to play against their opponent 7 times and the first team to 4 wins is the winner. Home court advantage plays a key role in the NBA Playoffs since the 7 games are played just a few days apart. This means early on, the home team has the advantage because the format is such that the 2 first games are played at home followed by 2 on the road and then alternating games 5-7 till there is a winner after game 7.
If the starting home team wins the first 2 games at home then their only challenge would be to split the away games and they have an advantage. Very few teams have ever come back from a 1-3 deficit to win a playoff series and a punter needs to use this information as a starting point for their NBA Playoffs betting strategy. Obviously, as the series goes on, it makes it easier for the parlay bets and picks to be selected best on both teams play in the previous games of the series.
Totals, Over/Under NBA Betting
We would be remiss if we did not talk about the other common of NBA betting including Totals and Over/Under betting. As the wager states, a bet on totals wagers on the total number of points scored by both teams in the game. Given that we can also add the twist of if the totals will be over a certain point for example with Lakers and Houston from our first example, the outcome was 203 so usually, the totals bet would be a range between 200-210 and the over-under would be the over of 200 or the under of 200. If one wagers an over of 200 and the score comes out as 203 then they are the winner and vice versa.
What is NBA Futures Betting?
The NBA Futures are wagers on the outcome of certain season-long events that are done at the beginning of the season, these include wagers on who will win the 2020 NBA Championship and many more.,
- NBA MVP ODDS
- NBA Finals ODDS
- NBA Rookie of the Year ODDS
- NBA Scoring Champion ODDS
- NBA Defensive Player of the Year ODDS.
- NBA Playoff ODDS
- NBA Title ODDS
- and many more.
Below are the current future NBA Championship odds for all NBA teams as of January 26th, 2020.
- Los Angeles Lakers +250
- Los Angeles Clippers +250
- Milwaukee Bucks +325
- Boston Celtics +1000
- Houston Rockets +1800
- Philadelphia 76ers +1800
- Denver Nuggets +1800
- Utah Jazz +1800
- Dallas Mavericks +2000
- Miami Heat +2200
- Toronto Raptors +3500
- Indiana Pacers +10000
- Oklahoma City Thunder +15000
- Portland Blazers +15000
- New Orleans Pelicans +15000
- Brooklyn Nets +25000
- Orlando Magic +25000
- San Antonio Spurs +50000
- Sacramento Kings +50000
- Memphis Grizzlies +50000
- Golden State Warriors +150000
- Minnesota T-Wolves +150000
- Detroit Pistons +150000
- Phoenix Suns +150000
- New York Knicks +200000
- Atlanta Hawks +200000
- Chicago Bulls +200000
- Cleveland Cavaliers +200000
- Charlotte Hornets +200000
- Washington Wizards +200000
Quarter, First Half and Half Money Lines
As with games that are broken down within quarters and halves, one can bet the outcome of certain events within a quarter and a half including, winner, points and over/under. Also top scorers in each half and other key stats including rebounding and assists. A punter can really clean out a bet by betting this way and the gratification is instant so they don’t have to wait until the game ends to make money.
Free NBA Picks and Parlays in the 2020 Finals
The NBA Finals is a different kind of Animal, not only is it the pinnacle of the NBA Season but it is the culmination of the top teams in each conference after 6 months of the regular season as well as several playoff rounds. As with the rest of the Playoff, home team advantage is crucial in the NBA Finals and a bettor’s betting strategy should take that into account.
Free NBA Picks and Parlays expert betting strategies.
The most common strategy our experts use when betting for the spreads in our Free NBA Picks and Parlays is to find the largest points spread line by scanning all the bookmakers. It might sound weird but look at it this way, in our above example 15 points spread vs a 3 points spread. Houston, if they lose by 15, will still lose by 3 so taking the biggest spread minimizes the risk a bit.
Basketball Parlays Today
For more on our free daily picks scroll back above for all the NBA Games.