- Where to Bet:
Betting the point spread, straight up winner, and over/under point total are the three popular NBA bets. Sportsbooks also first half lines, live betting, and other betting angles. Who's the favorite to win the NBA Championship? For odds on where teams will finish in the NBA Playoffs, check out our NBA Futures page. Bet on sports with the most established online sportsbook in the industry providing you with speedy payouts and solid customer service. NBA Odds & Lines at SportsBetting.ag Contact Us Refer a Friend. Bet on Sports, bet on the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship and all this 2021 NCAA Basketball Season with the Leading Online Sportsbook that Accepts Bitcoins. Cash out bet Cash Out this wager before it expires at an adjusted amount.
How to read NBA Las Vegas Odds
The point-spread was developed to provide a balance for both teams involved in a contest to attract bettors to potentially back the weaker team and receive points. The two squads in a game are listed with a title, either a favorite or an underdog. The favorite is usually the perceived better team in the game, as backing them means giving up several points.
The favorite is always listed with a minus (-) sign before the point-spread while the underdog is labeled with a plus (+) label.
Ex. Favorite -10, Underdog +10
On the VegasInsider.com odds page, there is another number associated with the favorite and its listed as -10. This number is simply defined as vig or what many in the sports betting industry call vigorish. Another common term is called juice and its technically the price the bettor has to pay on a straight wager.
Ex. Bet $110 to win $100 (10% juice)
Ex. Bet $100 to win $91.91 (10% juice)
It's not uncommon to see other values posted other than -10. Examples seen on the NBA Vegas Odds pages could include -08, -12, -15 and -20. The -10 price is the most common value in the industry while many books offer reduced 'juice odds' and that would fall into the -08 category.
The lower-juice sportsbooks are normally found outside of the state of Nevada. If you are in a state where sports betting is legal, please check out our online sportsbook directory to find the best and most secure places to make NBA bets.
Another number thats posted on the NBA Las Vegas is the total or over/under for the specific matchup. If the favorite is designated as the home team, then the total will be listed above and vice versa if the visitors are favorites.
All of the above numbers are listed next to the teams, and before each matchup is a Rotation number. The NBA Las Vegas Odds are listed in order of rotation and those numbers are generated and produced by the sportsbooks. Above each matchup and rotation is the Time of the game, which is subject to change. All game times are Eastern Standard Time.
NBA Open Line
One of the best features on the NBA Vegas Odds is the Open Line. This numbers consists of the first betting line received from one of our Las Vegas or Global Sportsbooks. The opening line varies depending on the sportsbook but it provides a clear-cut rating that the oddsmakers use. If youre betting on the NBA or any other sport, its a great idea to view the open line first.
VI Consensus NBA Line
The VegasInsider.com Consensus NBA Line is just as important as the Open Line and also a key resource on odds platform. The Consensus column could be called a Median Line since it shows the most consistent number provided by the sportsbooks on VegasInsider.com. The consensus line will be the same as the open line but once the wagers start coming in, this number is often different than the openers.
Betting on NBA Games
Where can I bet on NBA games?
There are several legal sportsbook options in the United States. Visit our sportsbook directory to find online sportsbooks where you can bet on the NBA.
Who are the experts picking to win?
Our experts offer picks on all the big NBA games. Check out our 2020 NBA Playoff Predictions or our NBA game picks to see what our handicappers are saying.
What type of bets can I make on NBA games?
Betting the point spread, straight up winner, and over/under point total are the three popular NBA bets. Sportsbooks also first half lines, live betting, and other betting angles.
Who's the favorite to win the NBA Championship?
For odds on where teams will finish in the NBA Playoffs, check out our NBA Futures page.
Can you place parlay bets on NBA games?
Most sportsbooks will allow you to parlay your baskteball bets, meaning you can bet on multiple odds and win a bigger payout if they all win. Check out our parlay calculator to see what your payout will be.
Finally, you landed on the right page! The one that is going to tell you
everything you need to know so you can attack betting the NBA Finals in full-on
beast mode! First and foremost, we are going to give you direct access to the
leading online betting sites when it comes to the biggest series in all of
basketball.
Don’t worry about spending any more of your valuable time searching for the
most legitimate sports betting sites. We already did that for you. Here are the top
betting sites for the NBA Finals:
| Rank | Gambling Site | Deposit Bonus | Get Started | |
| #1 | Up To €150 | Visit Site | ||
| #2 | 22Bet Sports | 100% Up To €122 | Visit Site | |
| #3 | 100% Up To €200 | Visit Site | ||
| #4 | 10Bet Sports | 100% Up To €50 | Visit Site | |
| #5 | 100% Up To €50 | Visit Site | ||
The sites listed above were carefully selected. We understand how important
your time and money is to you. Our process of ranking sites is a diligent
procedure, as our team puts in tireless efforts weeding through which sites will
actually deliver you the best online betting experience.
Why These Sites?
The NBA Finals is a big deal- hence the sites will offer a lot of options
when it comes to available bets. These wager opportunities will come in all
shapes and sizes. They will have slight alterations in the odds. This makes
picking your online betting site that much more critical.
You should be careful when deciding which online sites to sign up and start
placing wagers on. You only want to bet on the premier sports betting sites.
So, what makes an online sports betting site good anyway? Let’s take a look
at the factors that go into what it takes to be a stand out from the plethora of
sites that clog up the Internet these days.
Reliable Software
When you join an online site for the first time, it is key that the site is
easy to navigate. You should be able to easily browse through the different
games with no trouble, as well as be able to trust that the site won’t come
crashing down.
Have complete faith that the sites we recommended won’t let you down. The
virtual betting casinos above are easy to work your way around even if you don’t
have much experience betting sports online.
These sites take great pride having the most up to date software so that
their customers stay happy and have no issues getting their bets in. If any
problems arise for any reason whatsoever, feel confident these sites won’t leave
you hanging.
Great Customer Service
Having great customer service used to be a bonus for online sports betting
sites. Not anymore. Now it is imperative that online sites that offer betting
services to the public come fully equipped with a team of dedicated
representatives that are ready to tackle any complication or question a customer
may have.
When you need assistance, they will be there to help.
site is suggested.
The sites run smoothly, so chances are you will never need to contact these
men and women behind the scenes. In the event that you do, they will be there
waiting to serve you.
Having dependable software and customer service are just part of the puzzle.
Recommending sites to our readers is not taken lightly, so we cover all the
bases.
Speedy Deposit and Withdrawal Methods
One of the bases we cannot ignore is how fast and secure the banking options
are. All the other stuff is great and looks pretty, but if we can’t get money on
or off the site, then who really cares? We don’t, and you shouldn’t either. We
are talking about betting on the NBA Finals for real money here – we can’t fool
around with this topic.
It isn’t so much how many deposit and withdrawal methods are offered. We
focus on how safe and protected the options are. We have seen cases where a site
may offer six or seven choices for how to deposit money, but the problem is that
we haven’t heard of any of them, and they don’t seem to be too reliable.
As bettors, we would much rather see two or three deposit methods that we
know we can trust – methods we know will meet and exceed our expectations when it
comes to handling our funds. Rest assured that we took the time to ensure these
sites will not let the ball drop on this significant aspect.
Now that you know where to go and why you should go there, let’s talk
specifically about the NBA Finals. There are a lot of sharp bettors out there
that do their homework before this big event. Research needs to be done, so
let’s get into what should be looked at and how to go about doing that.
Things to Know to Succeed When Betting the NBA Finals
The NBA Finals is unlike any other series in basketball. Not only in terms of
significance for the teams that are playing, but also for fans of the game. Just
because we don’t get to participate in the actual playing of the game, doesn’t
mean we can’t still get in on the action. That’s where betting online comes in.
All of a sudden, we are just as interested and committed to the games as the
players and coaches!
So how do we approach the biggest and best seven-game series professional
basketball has to offer? Let’s take a peek at we need to be doing and what we
should be considering.
History Between the Teams
With the way the NBA schedule works out, teams from the Eastern Conference
will typically play two games against each Western Conference foe during the
course of the 82-game season. That means by the time the NBA Championship
arrives in June, we, at the very least, have a two-game sample to look at.
We need to look at the particulars before we fall too much in love with what
happened in those two games. Maybe one game was back in November and one of the
star players was out. In that case, the result of that game is far less
important when trying to figure out what might actually happen seven months
later.
On the contrary, maybe the two teams were at full-strength and just played
each other in the final week of the season. In that example, the data and
results from the contest should have a much clearer indication of what we can
expect to see when the two teams clash for a seven-game series.
Perhaps the teams have played against each other in recent NBA Finals before.
The 2016-2017 NBA season saw the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State
Warriors face-off in the season-ending series for the third consecutive year.
You can bet your bottom dollar that the studious portion of the public who was
betting the 2017 Finals was looking back on what happened the last two years.
The key takeaway here is to use whatever information is there to your
advantage. Don’t get too enveloped in what happened when the two teams played
last. Things and motives change, so use the history between the two teams not as
an end all be all, but as a starting a point instead.
There are plenty of other factors you need to be examining.
Home vs Away
There are certain things come NBA Finals time that we know for sure. We know
the series is played in a “Best of seven” format. We also know that one team
will have home-court advantage. The team with the home-court edge will host
games 1 and 2. They also host game 5 and game 7 should they be necessary. What
does this really mean?
Well, that will depend on how successful each team has been on their home
floor throughout the season. On the flipside, how good has each team been when
playing away from their building? This information is easy to find.
Check the most up-to-date standings
to find out how a team has fared at home as opposed to on the road.
Getting the information is the easy part. Knowing how and when to apply it is
the secret sauce. We don’t have all the mysteries figured out, but we do have a
pretty good idea on what the main influences are when it comes to the NBA
Finals.
Home-court advantage tends to play a massive role in the NBA Finals. We don’t
have to get into all the details as to why this happens, but the evidence
supports our case. While teams are winning home games around 60% of the time
during the regular season, that number swells to over 64% during the
post-season. Case and point, it is hard to travel during the playoffs and come
up with victories as the visiting team.
Keep in mind how far the teams are traveling. Does the team have to fly
five-plus hours from coast to coast the night after a game? Are they used to
such start times?
Let’s Look at an ExampleLet’s say the Los Angeles Lakers are playing the New York Knicks in the
Finals. Not a very likely scenario, but bear with us. The Lakers play a chunk of
their home games at 7:30 pm local time, which is 10:30 pm on the east coast.
Players on teams from the Eastern Conference typically are showered and in bed
by the time the Lakers games are in the second quarter.
Conversely, imagine when one of the Finals games has a 3:30 pm local tip-off
in New York City. The Laker team has to travel cross-country and be ready to
play by what feels like 12:30 in the afternoon for them.
Teams that are forced to play under conditions they are not used to will
stereotypically struggle, especially out of the gates. Potentially rolling with
the home team for the first-half bet could net us a profit. Maybe the first-half
under might be a sensible play when this particular situation occurs. These are
things we can be looking at when trying to apply the home and road splits to the
online betting arena.
We want to be meticulous when studying the recent trends. This will likely be
our most accurate source of material of what’s in store.
Recent Trends
Obviously, the two teams pitted against each other in the NBA Finals come
into the series playing some high-quality basketball. Teams do not reach the
Finals without coming together and playing consistently well. This means we have
to dig beneath the surface of just wins and losses. We already know these two
teams have been winning games – that’s why they’re still standing. We need to peel
back some layers and see how the teams got to this point.
Focus more on what’s been happening during the playoffs. What happened over
the course of the regular season still matters, it just carries less weight by
the time we get to June basketball. We are much more concerned with how a team
has been playing in the playoffs than how they played during the early portion
of the season before Christmas time.
Just because two teams reach the NBA Finals doesn’t mean they got there by
playing equally.
Point Differential
This is a biggie folks. This gives us a pretty clear idea of what has been
playing out on the court. Has the team has just been dominating their way
through the playoffs game in and game out, or has the team actually been getting
outplayed, but just coming up with the right play at the right time? Let’s take
a further look at what we are talking about with a couple examples from both
sides of the spectrum.
In 2017, the Golden State Warriors were running through their competition
like the speeding cars that whistle over the Golden Gate Bridge. They swept each
of their first three series, bringing a 12-0 postseason record into the Finals.
Let’s look even closer at how they got there.
The Warriors didn’t just win the first 12 games in succession. They
obliterated their opponents, winning the games by an average margin of 16.3
points per game. That is a substantial amount, signaling that the Warriors
really were a cut above the rest. They were the best team in the league and they
proved that by dominating games. We were not surprised to see the Warriors cover
the line in 4 of the 5 games played during the 2017 Finals.
On the other side, we see a year where a team “limped their way” into the
Finals. That statement should be taken with a grain of salt. Clearly, if a team
is in the Finals they are doing something right, but not every team goes on a
tear like the Warriors did in 2017.
In the event that you see a team with a negative point differential, stay far, far
away!
Nba Finals Sports Betting
You don’t need an inside source or some super computer to get this
information either. You can easily look at the final score from each of the
team’s playoff games. Take the number of points they either won or lost each
game by and simply divide it by the number of games played. That’s it. That’s
your last math lesson for the day, we promise!
There is another very important aspect to take into account before placing
our wagers on the Finals. We are talking about how to properly implement all the
stuff we hear on the Internet and TV. Different minds have contradictory
opinions, so who is right? Who is wrong?
Use Media – Carefully
Nowadays, much of what we hear about sports is heard via the media. Whether
that is reporters and journalists commenting on Twitter or a commentator
speaking at halftime of a game- we are eating up what the so-called “experts”
are telling us. This can be a great source of information to find out snippets
of data that we may not have otherwise been aware of.
However, be careful to not go overboard with what these so-called “basketball
touts” are saying. Not all of it is may be completely warranted or justified.
Here’s why:
Biased Opinions
Some of the so-called experts on social media are not really experts. They
are merely basketball fans trying to earn money by reporting on their favorite
sport. This can lead to problems if we are taking their advice too seriously.
Imagine the person giving advice was born and raised in Detroit and has been a
Detroit Pistons fan his entire life. Now let’s say the Pistons make it to the
Finals. Do you expect him to give an honest overview of what he expects to see?
Chances are he will give a biased opinion – one that’s based more off where his
heart lies, not his brain. Afterall, these reporters and analysts are still
human beings like you and me!
Is It Advice or Entertainment?
Is the source truly trying to give you valuable betting advice? Or is he or
she trying to entertain you and get you to follow them on Twitter or Facebook?
Whether it’s a huge television company or a small local podcast, businesses
have motives. It is nice when someone tells you something completely unbiased,
with nothing to personally gain. Unfortunately, that rarely happens nowadays,
especially in the social media realm.
We must be cautious not to take every single tip we hear and run to the
sportsbook. We need to find a few trusted sources and proceed accordingly. That
process is known as eliminating “all the outside noise” and settling on a few
reputable sources.
In terms of betting on the NBA Finals, this can be done quite easily. Don’t
pick just any random guy from ESPN. Focus on people that are accurately
considered experts in projecting basketball outcomes. Focus on listening to the
people who aren’t restricted to following a company guideline when it comes to
what advice to give.
A reporter like Mark Stein and
a writer like David Aldridge are
good examples of guys we can trust and would want to follow. They specifically
cover the NBA only and have no reason to lie to any of us. They have been in the
business for a long time and have inside access to information that the majority
of people covering the NBA will not have.
Now that you are getting acquainted with things to be looking for and
considering when betting the NBA Finals, let’s talk about how to make sure we
are getting the best line.
Line Shopping
You will remember that at the top of this page we didn’t offer you just one
site to bet on. We recommended the top several online sites that will satisfy
your every sports betting need when it comes to the NBA Finals. Don’t try and be
a hero and get everything done on just one site. The beauty of betting the NBA
Finals online is that we have many choices. So, let’s take advantage of them.
Different Sites Can Mean Different Odds
For online betting sites to be competitive in today’s market, they need to be
on their toes. Due to the heavy interest in a sporting event like the NBA
Finals, the sites will take in a lot of action. This means the odds are
constantly changing. We need to stay up to date on what each site is offering
and how we can take advantage of this thing called “line shopping”.
If a team opens at -4 across all of the sites, watch the line closely as you
may see noteworthy movement by the time the game tips off. More importantly,
notice the variance in the lines you see at each site. If one site took an
extremely heavy bet on one side, that site may adjust the line sooner than
another site. Obviously, we only want to get the premium number.
Premium Number
This is fairly straightforward. All we mean by this is to take the time to
shop through the sites. Say you want to bet the favorite, and that team is -4 on
most of the sites. But then, you find them at -3.5 on another. Boom! You just
bought yourself an extra half-point by doing the quick homework.
Don’t Fall for Parlays and Teasers
Sportsbook Nba Finals
We already told you there would be no more math equations for the day, so we
won’t get into the exact details. Just know that casinos will offer you
significantly lower payout odds than the true mathematical odds. The true odds
of say hitting a four-team parlay are 15:1 for the average bettor.
Unfortunately, the sites will generally only pay out 10:1 when correctly hitting
a 4-team parlay.
Obviously, the NBA Finals is just one series played between two teams. Stick
to basics on betting on the point total and who will win. Getting fancy trying
to parlay or tease NBA Finals bets with Major League Baseball games and other
sporting contests will just burn a hole in your wallet.
Don’t sell yourself short. Stay away from parlays and teasers.
What you can do, though, is bet on the props that are offered during the
Finals.
Prop Bets
Nba Finals Sportsbook
The section many of you were waiting for! One of the great things about the
NBA Finals is the prop bets that are offered. This isn’t just a standard
mid-season game where we are only offered a point spread and an over/under
total.
The NBA Finals are littered with prop bets. Some are kind of silly. Others we
may be able to take advantage of. Let’s take a look at some of the examples that
have been offered in the past.
- Exact Result of the Series
- Who Will Win the Finals MVP
You can also bet on props that are based on each individual game. For
example:
- Who will score the first bucket?
- Which team will have more 3-pointers?
- Who will be the leading rebounder?
Then, of course, we have all the fun “totals prop bets”. These are bets we
simply just select, over or under. Examples of these would be-
- 107.5 Total Points Scored for Player X
- 23.5 Total Points in Game 2 for Player Y
- 1.5 Technical Fouls Committed for Player Z
You can get an idea of how entertaining these prop bets can make the Finals
for an otherwise uninterested bystander. Put some money on the line, and believe
us, people become absorbed in the action.
Our suggestion is to again, scour through the sites and find all the
available prop bets. Find out which ones you think you have some inside
information on or that you can take advantage of. The effort put into coming up
with and setting the lines for the prop bets is far less extensive than the one
put into calculating the game’s odds.
Nba Finals Sportsbook Games
This leads to “less perfect lines” being set. In turn, that means more
opportunity for the hungry bettors. If you are like us, then you have a large
appetite and are ready to eat!
Summary
We hope this page gave you a deep look into everything that goes into betting
the NBA Finals. Primarily, you need to know which sites will provide the most
pleasurable experience. The ones that are trustworthy and the ones that offer a
great selection of bets are already listed for you at the top of this article.
The next order of business is to not leave any stones unturned when it comes
to what to look out for. The NBA Finals are such an exciting sporting event,
sites will offer their customers an abundance of opportunities to bet on more
than just who will win and by how many points. Take advantage of the prop bets.
They will make watching the NBA Finals even that much more stimulating.
Knowing how to shop lines will be invaluable. Combing through the sites
different bets and odds will allow you to feel comfortable knowing you are
getting the best line out there. The only thing left to do is actually pick the
winners. Do some homework and listen to what the “trusted experts” have to say.