For Canadian NBA fans, when it comes to selecting your betting site, you want to ensure that the sportsbook you pick takes its basketball coverage seriously. You'll want to get competitive odds margins (sportsbook hold), plenty of betting markets (aka ways to bet) and of course top-notch live and in-play betting. We discuss all these aspects of NBA betting and more below. SNBET's top betting sites all serve Canada from their offshore jurisdictions in Malta or Gibraltar, but they will also all become licensed Ontario's sportsbooks from the April 4, 2022 market launch date onward.
Money Line: This is the betting market to play when you want to bet on the winner of a given NBA game, once it is final.
Point Spread: This is the main handicap market in the NBA. The purpose of a handicap market is to create a situation where the betting odds on either potential result are fairly close, if not identical in value. The point spread is also sometimes referred to as 'the line'. This is the threshold for the point spread itself. The point spread is a handicap that is provided to the favoured team. If a team is heavily favoured, you might see a spread of -10.5 points. In this case, the favoured team would need to win the game by at least 11 points in order to 'cover the spread' for a bet on them to be declared a won bet. If the favoured team in this case only won by 10 points or less, or even lost the game outright, a bet on that team would be a lost bet.
On the other side of that bet, if you wager on the underdog, that team would simply need to not lose by 11 points or more. If they were to lose by 10 points or less, or even win the match, a bet on them here would be declared a won bet.
Sometimes the spread itself can be an even number, not ending in a half point, like +/-7 points for example. If a game were to end where the favourite won the game by exactly 7 points, all stakes on either side of this wager would be returned to bettors.
Total: This is the main Over/Under NBA market for the total number of points to be scored in a given game.
Typically competitive odds margin for these 2-way NBA betting markets tends to be in the 4% to 6% to region. You will be able to easily recognize competitive margins by looking at odds pairings that are identical. When you see a 'Point Spread' with odds of -110/-110 or 1.91/1.91 as displayed by their respective American or Decimal odds formats, these reflect a margin of just under 5%, which is fairly good value.
If you see that given sportsbook has odds that look like -118/-118 or 1.85/1.85, this reflects a margin of over 8%, which is not very competitive at all. When you see odds margins this high, your odds will be low more often than not, which makes it far more difficult to stay on the positive side of things for your NBA wagers. This matters more than you might think. When your betting site is charging an 8% margin, they are keeping 60% more in margin than a betting site that is trying to be competitive with a margin of 5%. That's a big difference. Whether you are just betting on the NBA for fun or your are a serious bettor, NBA odds margins or 'sportsbook hold' really does matter.
NBA futures betting refers to the betting markets that revolve around events in the NBA season that will resolve further into the future as compared to most games. Sometimes these are called 'long term' markets or 'outright winner' markets. The most important NBA futures market is the NBA Championship Winner, where you place a bet on the team that you think will lift the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Other NBA futures markets can include accepting of a bet on the Eastern Conference Winner or the Western Conference Winner. You can also bet on the winners of all the individual major NBA trophies like the MVP, Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and more.
When it comes to betting on NBA games outside the above markets, you can usually find over 200 ways to bet from all our top listed betting sites. These markets include various 1st Half and 2nd Half lines, as well as 1st Quarter, 2nd Quarter, 3rd Quarter and 4th Quarter lines. That is to say that you can bet on the Money Line, Spread and Total within each of these defined periods.
Other NBA betting markets can include Main Props, which might include various alternate spreads among an array of combined markets. Player props have grown in popularity and top NBA betting sites have tons of them. These include player markets that have to do with scoring, threes, assists, blocks, steals, double-double, triple-doubles etc.
When it comes to sports betting, in general, you have not been able to create a parlay or combination bet that has outcomes related to the same game or event. This changed with the advent of the Same Game Parlay, which is sometimes called the 'Bet Builder'. You can create Same Game NBA Parlays at bet365.