There are a lot of good NBA betting sites out there but in this section, we wanted to talk to you about our top rated sites. If you’re looking to bet on the NBA, here are our five favorite betting sites for it:
BetUS is a popular online sportsbook with a reputation for offering generous bonuses rapid payouts and high-quality odds.
Bovada is one of the best betting sites available online. Get a 75% bonus up to $750 with a Bitcoin deposit or a 50% bonus up to $250 with a cash deposit. We love their fast payouts, live odds and a huge selection of betting lines.
Although MyBookie is one of the newer ones to the market (2014), they’ve wasted little time carving itself out a name among the best sportsbooks out there right now.
SportsBetting offers one of the highest bonuses for first-time deposits as new players receive 50% bonus to a maximum of $1,000. On top of that, you can get a a $50 mobile free play and a $25 risk-free bet.
Thunderpick is the ideal place for those looking to bet on esports or regular sports and use cryptocurrency. They have a huge array of esports betting options like DOTA, Valorant and Call of Duty to go along with all of the pro sports like NFL, NBA and UFC.
The best NBA betting sites are:
- Bovada – One of the biggest names in sports betting. We specifically love the live betting on the site. They have a huge array of NBA Odds specifically, they have tons of props, futures and in-game betting action each day.
- BetOnline – One of the most trusted online betting sites around. Their NBA betting variety is second to none. They have tons of in-game options too. Overall, this is one of our favorites.
- MyBookie – Lots of good things at this site (not just for NBA, but for all sports) but we would highlight here their props. They have so many different online betting options beyond just the regular spreads, over-unders and moneylines, that it really makes it a fun place to bet sports.
- BookMaker – There are some sites that are better for entertainment purposes but this is the site where the professional bettors play. They accept huge limits on NBA games – and for all sports in general – and they’re usually the first to open the odds on NBA. Those two factors are a big reason why they have such a good reputation.
- YouWager – Deposit bonuses and ongoing bonuses are a big incentive for many customers when choosing an NBA betting site and YouWager has plenty to offer in this regard.
Ingredients for the Best NBA Betting Sites
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Though internet betting is a growing business, there are still many companies in a vast sea of online choices. Some NBA betting sites offer big deposit bonuses or live betting or different types of deposit methods. What is the best one for you? If you want to bet on the NBA, you should obviously want your betting experience to be as pleasant as possible, so that’s why we’ve made this page.
There are plenty of sports betting sites without a solid structural foundation try to pounce on gullible or unsuspecting bettors by getting you to deposit but then making it really hard for you to get your money out. If you’re interested in betting on NBA basketball but have a legitimate worry that you will be scammed by any of the numerous low-quality, low-rent sites in a hard-to-regulate marketplace, you need resources.
This page will point you to the right people who take this matter seriously. If you’re on your own, you need to do your research so that you won’t get taken for a ride but on this page, we’ve done the legwork for you. We’ll teach you about the industry and the betting process, brought to you from a community of people who are evaluating betting sites and making sure they offer a real product, not a fraudulent scheme.
It is important for the online gambling industry to have advocacy-oriented outlets which are committed to transparency, accountability, and credibility. There has to be a place for vetting the vast proliferation of betting sites and identifying the most reliable ones. You, as a bettor, have to know which sites are playing it straight and giving you a legitimate product, and which ones are trying to sell you a mirage without real backing or honest dealing. You want to know when you go to a betting site that everything is on the up and up. That makes the experience fun and reduces a lot of unneeded stress.
Learning about betting on the NBA – and which sites are credible – is a first step to take before actually beginning your betting journey and enjoying the process. Let’s start this off by thinking about how to choose your ideal NBA betting site.
How To Find The Best NBA Betting Site
When you’re on the hunt through the different NBA betting sites to see what’s the best one for you, there are a number of key factors to consider. As is always the case, shopping around depends on what you’re looking for and what’s important to you. However, if you’re asking us, here’s what we would look at to get started.
- Banking MethodsOne of the keys to NBA online gambling is to figure out the banking methods that are accepted at the sportsbook. Most online sportsbooks will accept methods like credit cards, bank transfers/bank wires and crypto currency. In terms of withdrawals, they’ll usually do checks, bank transfers/bank wires and crypto currency as well. Those are all banking methods that are – generally speaking – readily accepted. However, if you find an NBA sportsbook site that makes it difficult to deposit or withdraw, then that really cuts you off right there. If you can’t get your money in, you can’t play.
- NBA Basketball Betting LinesThe next thing you’ll want to examine at the NBA betting site is what type of odds they offer. For the most part, every single sportsbook on the internet will have a point spread, moneyline and total on every single NBA game. That’s the minimum standard across the board.What separates an awesome sportsbook from an average one is what’s offered beyond the basic lines. Are there player props in the sportsbook? Are there alternate totals? Can you play teasers? The best NBA betting sites will have a boatload of betting options with player props, NBA team props and also sorts of wagers for each game. The basic online sportsbooks will just have spreads, moneylines and totals.
- ReputationWhen you’re shopping around for the right NBA betting site, you want to make sure it has a good reputation. Of course, we compile the reviews from the around the internet, so you can take a peek and see which ones we recommend before you get started.An online gambling site with a good reputation will always payout quickly. The NBA betting sites you want to avoid are the ones where players in the community have filed complaints about payouts or grumble about long payout times.
- Mobile Betting SiteA lot of people love betting on the go, so you’ll want to look at NBA betting sites that have a good mobile product. For the most part, these betting sites don’t have an app. They don’t really need one, though. What they’ll do is optimize their regular site for mobile, which means when you hit the site from your mobile browser, it’s going to look like an app. That means the sportsbook will automatically adjust to your device’s screen and make basketball betting a lot easier via mobile (using touch instead of a keyboard and mouse).If you find an online sportsbook that doesn’t have a good mobile version, that’s not a great sign. The truth is that almost every site – not just the top rated ones – have mobile sites that cater to sports betting on the go.
- Live BettingOne of the most popular things to do at NBA betting sites is live betting. However, this is also something that separates the best books from the worst. The worst betting sites will have just a few games for live betting up and they won’t have many options. They’ll let you bet on the best NBA games of the week but they won’t have all. Beyond that, the betting options for each game won’t be plentiful. In other words, they might offer an in-game spread and moneyline, but not much more. One last big difference among the NBA betting sites is how fast the live betting works. On the better NBA betting sites, live betting will be blazing fast and you can bet frequently. On the worse ones, the sportsbook will be slow and the betting lines will lag.What you want is a sportsbook that has every single game on the board, has the NBA betting lines up throughout the entire game (or as much as possible), runs fast and gives you tons of sports betting options per game. That might mean alternate totals, who’ll lead at the half, quarter spreads, player props and more. That’s a good NBA betting site and that’s the type of place you want to play at.
- Deposit BonusOne of the major benefits of playing at online sites is that they give you a deposit bonus. That information is useful to know as it means a deposit bonus can give your account a big boost before you’ve even placed a bet.For example, if a sportsbook offers a 100% bonus, that means you can deposit $100 and get an extra $100 into your account. That means you’ve doubled your money right off the bat.Make sure to read the information relating to bonuses. That might mean terms and conditions, taking note of the rollovers or just understanding what type of bonus it is. Some sites will give you a free bet while some others will give you cash in your account. Some sites will have a 10-time rollover while some others might only hold you to a two or three-time rollover. We always prefer sites with a cash bonus instead a free bet and with rollovers, the lower the better.
Common NBA Bets
Here are various types of NBA bets which will you will find at nearly every online sports betting site.
NBA Point Spread
Point spreads refer to the margin by which a team wins or loses. If the Lakers are favored over the Bulls by 6.5 points, and you bet the favorite, the Lakers must win by seven or more points. If you bet on the underdog, the Bulls must lose by six points or fewer for you to win.
NBA Totals (Over-Under)
Totals bets are a way to gamble on the full scoring output in a game by both teams combined, not by one team. A total is often referred to in more common parlance as the “over-under” for a game. The over-under is the number you are betting against – either more points or fewer points than the total.
So, if the over-under is 190 for a Bucks-Celtics game, and the final score is 97-91, the total number of points scored in the game is 188. The “under” wins. If you bet on the under, you would have won. If you had bet on the “over,” you would have lost.
NBA Moneyline
The moneyline is the simplest sports bet. You bet on the outright winner, not a point spread or a point total. The odds for a moneyline favorite winning can be very high, if that team is excellent (the Bucks or Lakers) and the opponent is terrible (the Cavs, the Knicks, the Suns). However, the payout won’t be very much. Try to find a moneyline bet where you have a better feel for two teams which are more evenly matched. If you win a relatively even moneyline bet, you’ll get a much bigger return on your investment.
NBA Parlays
Parlay bets combine multiple bets into one larger bet which is contained on one ticket, as opposed to several tickets. You’re not making several isolated bets; you are grouping the bets together and hoping they all hit. If you do hit all of them, you’ll get a big payout, since getting six bets correct in one shot involves a lot more risk than one isolated bet on one game. However, if you miss just one bet on a parlay card with six different installments, you lose the parlay bet. The payout for a parlay is big, but the odds of winning are low. That is a basic reality of betting: The lower your chances of winning, the greater the payout is if you do win; conversely, the higher your odds of winning a bet, the lower your payout is.
NBA Futures
Futures bets usually involve outcomes that will be decided at the end of the season, not in one game or on one day. You could bet on the MVP winner, the two conference champions, and the eventual NBA champions, for instance.
NBA Live Betting
Almost every sportsbook offers live betting. Live betting allows bet on games as they play out. After every basket, after every possession – and even during – the odds are updated. You can jump in and place your bet at any point. This is really popular because it allows you to bet in NBA games as they go, so you can watch, get a feel for how the game is going and then make your decision.
How To Have Success At NBA Betting Sites
Treat It As A Business (Don’t Get Emotional)
The biggest myth about betting on the NBA is that it is an exercise in picking the winner of the game. It’s not; it’s about having long-term success in identifying good betting prices and extracting victories from good betting prices over an extended period of time. Losing an individual bet is not an indictment of your process, and winning an individual bet doesn’t mean you have everything figured out. If you study the NBA or any other sport properly, you will know where and how to find value, making this a profitable and fun exercise over the course of a full year. If you’re getting angry about losing one bet, you shouldn’t. You have to look at the big picture when betting on the NBA or any sport.
Do Your Homework
If you follow the whole NBA – and all 30 teams – great! However, if you don’t follow all 30 teams religiously, a basic piece of betting advice is to focus on teams that you study closely. Also, make sure that if you study an NBA team closely, know your own biases. If you are a fan of that team, you don’t want to make an emotional bet. You want to trust your homework, the numbers, the trends, all the relevant statistics and information which go into making a calculated bet. If this is just an emotional joyride for entertainment purposes, that’s perfectly fine. The NBA league is known for that. However, you’re going to have a much harder time making a profit at your sportsbook. Winning money is the goal, not using your fandom to be a thrill-seeker.
NBA Betting Is A Year-Round Process
In line with the notion that smart betting is part of a year-round process, be sure to do at least some study in the offseason. Realize how much certain roster changes can mean for a team. There’s free agency and the NBA Draft and coaches get fired and hired. You have to pay attention to these moves. Maybe you will enter the regular season convinced that a team is bound for a huge turnaround or collapse. Maybe, however, you know enough about the NBA to realize that an adjusted roster creates more questions than answers. That is part of being an astute bettor: knowing enough to realize when you don’t have enough information to make a sound bet.
The NBA season is 82 games and then the league shifts to the playoffs, so there are tons of chances to learn something new about any team during the season. When it is over, you’ll grasp NBA handicapping on a much deeper level compared to anyone who doesn’t put in the homework.
Why It’s Helpful To Have Accounts At Multiple Sportsbooks
A lot of the NBA betting experts know the value of having multiple accounts at multiple sportsbooks. If this concept seems a bit foreign to you, let’s go over four reasons why this is actually one of the most important strategies of betting on this league:
Shop Around For The Best Line
This is arguably the most important piece of information in this section: you have to shop around. Professional sports bettors known that when you’re betting on a team – in any league – you have to look at the different lines on the board across multiple sportsbooks. That’s because the lines differ from shop to shop and you’re going to save money by betting the best line. If you don’t do that, you’re only going to hurt yourself in the long run. Let’s take a look at a simple example using BetOnline and Bovada:
Point Spread
BetOnline
Los Angeles Clippers +1
Los Angeles Lakers -1
Bovada
Los Angeles Clippers +1.5
Los Angeles Lakers -1.5
Moneyline
BetOnline
Los Angeles Clippers +125
Los Angeles Lakers -155
Bovada
Los Angeles Clippers +120
Los Angeles Lakers -150
Let’s start with the point spread here. In the first example, there is a half-point difference. If you bet on the Clippers and they lose by exactly one point, that means that you’d win your bet at Bovada whereas you’d tie at BetOnline. That’s a big difference. The same goes the other way with the Lakers. If you’re betting games every night, that’s a percentage of wins you are giving away.
Now let’s look at the moneylines attached to the lines. You can see that if you want to bet on the Lakers, the cheaper price on the board is at Bovada but if you want to bet on the Clippers, the better price is at BetOnline. Using that information, you know that it makes sense to have accounts at two different spots because on any given wager, you might be saving at one place or the other.
When you do the math over the course of an NBA season, that really starts to add up. Let’s say that you wager about $100 per game and you only really lose an extra $5 by not shopping around. Let’s say you win 50% of your bets over the course of the NBA season. So that means you’re losing about $2.5 each time. If you wager on two games a night over six months, we’re talking about a lot of money lost in the long run. And the best part is you can prevent that simply by opening another account.
Bigger Limits
Sportsbooks have specific limits on how much you can bet on an NBA game. For the most part, a recreational player won’t go over the limit at a book. Usually, it’s something like $5000 per game for general league matchups. However, if you are a player who does want to get down more than that on an NBA spread, moneyline or total, then having accounts at multiple books allows you to do that. This way, if you’re looking to bet $8000, you can bet $5000 at one book and $3000 at another. This allows you to spread it around and get bigger bets down.
Get Access To Different Lines
As you track the NBA season, you’ll notice that different sportsbooks have different lines up on the board throughout the year. That means it’s important to have accounts at multiple shops because you’re going to get access to different lines.
Some sportsbooks are known for having a great selection of props – both for players and teams. Other sportsbooks might have a huge selection of futures, which includes betting on things like who’ll win the NBA championship, regular season win totals for each team, NBA odds to win the conferences, odds to win on the different NBA awards and much more. Some sportsbooks have tons of these lines up on the board while others focus their attention elsewhere. By having accounts in multiple spots, you will have access to a greater selection of NBA lines.
Take Advantage Of More Bonuses
This is one useful piece of information: take advantage of all of the different bonuses at different sportsbooks. Almost every sportsbook on the planet offers a welcome bonus and by having accounts at different shops, you can get multiple deposit bonuses. For example, if BetOnline is going to give you a 100% deposit bonus to sign up with them, you can take that and then also have an account at Bovada where they’ll also hook you up. Every time you open a new account at a new site, you can collect another bonus. Then you can turn around and have a lot more money to work with when you start betting the NBA and all of the league games.
It’s Free
One of the main reasons why so many sharps employ multiple sportsbooks is because it’s completely free. Unlike bank accounts, there is no fee to open up a sportsbook account. There is also no fee in terms of keeping an account open (no annual fee). That means it literally costs you nothing to have multiple accounts at multiple books. If there was some kind of cost involved with this, it might be prohibitive but since that’s not the case, we recommend you do this.
Gamble Responsibly When Betting On NBA
As with drinking, be responsible with gambling. Don’t overindulge and know when to stop. Don’t let this drain your personal or family finances. Manage your activity and have the good sense to know when you need to step away from an online bet. You don’t want this to lead to a financial crisis. This should be done with finances you can tightly control, and which are separate from your main pool of family or household funds for bills, groceries, and your other basic daily needs.