When it comes to end-to-end excitement, there is quite simply nothing like basketball in the sporting world. A couple of hours spent watching the NBA, NCAA, BBL or Euroleague simply flies by in a flurry of layups, slam dunks and three-pointers. The NBA in particular has produced some of the biggest sporting stars of all time. The growth in popularity of basketball in the UK has also led to an increase in basketball betting, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by the best UK sportsbooks.
In the latest of our in-depth sports betting guides, it’s time to turn our attention to basketball. As usual, we’ll be revealing our top basketball betting sites and divulging exactly why they have made the cut. Furthermore, we’ll be sharing some top basketball betting tips that will help you make the most informed, sensible and “Ballin'” bets!
Before we get into more detail, here’s a list of what we consider to be the 10 best basketball online betting sites:
BetVictor is one of the highest profile sportsbooks in the UK and while they may be more well known or their football and horse racing features, basketball betting online fans will find lots to like. The first thing that struck us was just how many basketball leagues and competitions are featured worldwide, from the ones we’d expect such as the NBA and EuroLeague, to lesser-known leagues in Kosovo, Australia and Uruguay.
There are basketball bet boosts available across multiple markets and not just the NBA. Furthermore, you can see trending NBA bets if you’re looking for some further inspiration. And BetVictor’s in-play offering is excellent, with lots of markets to bet on, live updates and statistics.
888sport is known as a USA sports betting specialist and their NFL betting offering is one of the best there is. And there’s also plenty to like from a basketball point of view. In-play betting at 888sport is enhanced by basketball live streaming and a comprehensive live statistics section. And speaking of stats, 888sport also has an excellent selection of statistics from seasons gone by that can inform your current NBA bets. They are also the proud owner of one of the best basketball betting apps in the UK.
The 888sport Acca Club encompasses basketball wagers, as does their unique offer where punters can earn a £5 free bet once a week if they secure a winning wager at odds of more than 4/1. And while we couldn’t find any NBA-specific offers as it was the off-season, we reckon that if any UK site were likely to introduce at least one existing customer offer relating to basketball it would be 888sport. So keep an eye on their promotions page between October and April!
Betting on American sporting events can be more complicated than in other team sports or even individual events such as golf and tennis. So it’s great to see a site like Betway who have made life easier for their customers by publishing specific guides to things like prop bets and points spreads, which are common markets when it comes to basketball betting. And the Betway betting blog also features basketball betting predictions and bespoke articles that will be of interest to basketball fans worldwide.
Betway’s basketball betting online service is also a slam dunk, with lots of worldwide leagues to wager on, a massive range of markets available ahead of each game, price boosts and statistics. And you can also earn a £10 free bet each week when you wager £25 on multiple bets, including basketball selections.
A common criticism of UK sports betting sites is that when it comes to special offers they prioritise football and horse racing and fans of other sports may miss out on specific deals relating to those events. That is certainly not the case at QuinnBet as they have a great selection 0f existing customer deals relating to US sports.
You can earn Acca Boosts and benefit from Acca Insurance when placing USA-centric multiple bets. And you can even combine NBA and NFL selections if that’s your thing! In addition, every day QuinnBet will credit your account with a free bet of up to £10 based on 5% of your total in-play bets on US Sports.
Here’s a summary of the key features available at all of the best betting sites for basketball that are featured on this page:
Sportsbook
Basketball Live Betting
Basketball Live Streaming
Basketball Bet Builder
Basketball Acca Offers
Basketball-Specific Promotions
Basketball Betting Predictions
BetVictor
888sport
Betway
QuinnBet
LiveScoreBet
VirginBet
Betfred
BoyleSports
10Bet
There are so many reputable sports betting sites out there that may seem at first glance to be offering most of the same things, particularly if you’re new to betting. However, there are ways to differentiate basketball betting sites and use a specific set of criteria to work out which ones are the best for you.
And to help you with that, here’s how we judge the very best basketball online betting sites.
The trustworthiness of a sports betting site is our number one priority. So one sure bet is that any site we feature will be legitimate and safe to wager at. All the sites featured on this page are licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission. In addition, they all take steps to protect their customers’ sensitive data. However, if the integrity of a betting site is paramount to you then we would specifically recommend heading to the more established names such as BoyleSports and Betfred.
Basketball-specific promotions are exceptionally rare but there are plenty of existing customer deals available that take into account basketball bets. At QuinnBet, they offer an an Acca Bonus, Acca Insurance, along with a unique deal where they will refund 5% of your in-play bets on US Sports each and every day. Furthermore, sites such as Betway, 888sport and LiveScoreBet offer deals where you will be rewarded with free bets for placing a certain number of accumulators each week.
It’s also worth checking out the special features that are up for grabs at a particular basketball betting site. For instance, 10Bet offers a mobile-only basketball Bet Builder which allows you to combine multiple bets on one match into a single accumulator bet. While the number of basketball price boosts we found at BetVictor and BoyleSports was superb.
Checking out expert views on basketball can be a great way to work out which basketball bets to place. There are lots of sports websites that offer betting tips but many basketball betting sites do too. So we’d always recommend checking out the basketball betting predictions at sites such as Betway and Betfred.
Basketball is truly a worldwide sport, with leagues in every corner of the globe. And the best basketball betting sites should feature a good selection of competitions, along with ante-post markets such as the overall winner and MVP. Then you should be looking for a wide range of basketball betting markets such as match winner, multiple handicap and points totals markets, as well as team and player prop bets such as total points. And we found all of those and more at 888sport, Betway and QuinnBet.
Mobile betting apps are no longer “a nice thing to have” but an absolutely essential element of a sportsbook’s betting offering. The best apps need to mirror their desktop couterparts as closely as possible, while being easy to navigate. 888sport has one of the best basketball betting apps in the UK and 10Bet also deserves a mention, thanks to their mobile-only basketball Bet Builder feature.
In our experience, most punters are not hugely concerned about betting odds for basketball. And that’s because with so many markets on offer it’s very hard to know if you’re getting the best prices. However, finding basketball price boosts at sites such as Betway, BoyleSports and VirginBet is a far easier undertaking!
Bets placed before the start of the season on the winners of a particular basketball championship or league are called “ante-post” wagers. For instance, you can bet on the winner of the NBA Championship in the weeks and months before the season starts. And when it comes to EuroLeague basketball betting you can also bet on the league winner in advance. Or if you’re an NCAA basketball betting aficionado you can bet on the winners of the March Madness tournament in advance. In addition, these kind of markets remain during the campaign and a team’s price can potentially change a lot depending on their results throughout the season.
Many worldwide basketball leagues give awards to the best-performing players of the regular season. The most common of these is the most valuable player, or “MVP” award, but there are also many others such as the offensive or defensive player of the year or the top league scorer. Furthermore, the NBA has its “Rookie of the Year” accolade, given to the best-performing player in their first season after being drafted. And if you like college basketball betting you can also wager on the national men and women players of the year.
Moving on to individual basketball matches, the easiest wager to place is on the winner of a particular game. These are often called “Moneyline” bets but when you see that it just means you can bet on either the home or the away side to win. One team will always be the “favourite” and available at a lower price than the other team, known as the “underdog”.
Another popular market is the total points scored by both teams in a particular game. The bookies will work out how many points they think both teams will score and then set what are called basketball betting lines. You can then choose whether to bet “Over”, or “Under”. For example, the LA Lakers may be facing the Boston Celtics and the total points line is set at 190.5. You can then choose to bet the over or the under. So let’s say you bet the over and the game finished 100-94 to either side. That’s 194 points and a winning bet! And the beauty of total points bets is that you don’t need to worry about who wins the game.
Another wager that is not linked to the winner of a game is betting on one of the teams to score over or under a certain amount of points. So let’s say Barcelona are playing Real Madrid in the EuroLeague “El Clasico” and you bet on Barca to score over 85 points. No matter what else happens in the game, as long as they score 86 points or more you will be the proud owner of a winning wager!
Player props work slightly different when it comes to basketball in that you can’t bet on a particular player to score, as pretty much every member of a team is likely to find the basket at one point in the game! Instead, the most common player prop bets are the total number of points they will earn. So you could bet on LeBron James to score over or under 30 points in a game, for example.
A basketball game is split into four quarters and two halves, and many sites will offer markets such as a team or player’s points total in the first quarter or first half. And these markets can be useful if you have identified a team that is usually a slow starter in a game.
The best basketball sites will also offer special bets ahead of certain games, so these are always worth looking out for. They are generally player-related, such as “Steph Curry to score a triple-double”, which is the holy grail of basketball scoring, where a player reaches double figures in points, assists and rebounds.
A hugely popular way to bet on hoops is basketball handicap betting, often called the “Point Spread”. The main feature of handicap betting is that the underdog is given a points head start, so if you back them in the handicap market you have two chances to win, if they win outright or lose by less than the head start they have been given. On the other side of the coin, you can back the favourites to overcome that handicap.
Let’s say the Miami Heat are favourites in a game against the Chicago Bulls. They have been given a “handicap” 0f 5.5 points so if you bet on the Heat with that handicap, they would need to win by six points or more for your bet to be a winner. Conversely, you can choose to bet on the Bulls +5.5, so if they win outright or lose by less than five points then you will be quids in!
There are numerous advantages to basketball handicap betting, the first of which is that it lets you back the favourite but earn a much more attractive price than backing them on the moneyline. And secondly, if you’re backing the underdog they don’t even need to win for you to win your bet.
An increasingly popular way to bet on hoops is basketball spread betting, at sites such as Spreadex. The basic premise of spread betting is that instead of betting on a particular outcome at fixed odds that will either win or lose, you are predicting whether a particular sporting total is higher or lower than the “spread” that the bookies have set.
For example, Paulistano is playing Corinthians basketball’s top tier. The predicted total points “spread” is 152-156. The lower total is always the “sell” price and the higher one is the “buy” price. So you can choose to buy at 156 if you think that the total is too low and there will be more than 156 points or sell at 152 if you think the total will be lower than that.
The key point to note from here is that in fixed odds betting you always know exactly how much you will win or lose. For example, if you place a £10 bet at 2/1, you know you will win £30 or lose your £10 stake. With spread betting it’s different because your winnings or losses depend on how high or low the final totals are.
So going back to our Brazilian friends, let’s say you buy the total points at 156 for a £1 unit stake and the game ends up with 176 points. That’s 20 points over the buy total so you will win 20 x £1, which is £20. However, if you bought at 152 and the total was 122 you would lose £30, which is 152-122 multiplied by your £1 unit stake.
Basketball spread betting has the potential for huge profits but also the risk of losing larger amounts. However, that risk/reward element is a huge reason why its popularity is increasing.
Betting on a live basketball game once it has started has become hugely popular with punters looking to take advantage of the extra information available to inform their bets. Some basketball betting sites will offer live streaming so you can keep right up to date with the on-court action. And if even if they don’t offer streaming, some sites will feature play-by-play updates and lots of in-play stats, so you won’t miss any live basketball betting action!
LiveScoreBet – Bet £10 & Get £20 in Free Bets
888sport – Bet £10 And Get £30 In Free Bets
BoyleSports – Bet £10 & Get £20 in Free Bets
There were no basketball-specific offers available at the time of writing this article, but here are the top three existing customer promotions that you can earn by betting on basketball.
BetVictor: BV Loyalty Club. Opt in to the BV Loyalty Club and place five bets of £5 or more on any sports market, each with odds of 1/2 (1.50) or greater. You can then “Open the Box” and win a free bet totalling between £1 and £25. Free bet does not have to be wagered in its entirety and can be used on any sports markets. Wagers placed with free bet funds cannot be cashed out and if a free bet is a winner, only the profit will be returned and not the free bet stake. Free wagers expire in seven days. Other Ts & Cs apply.
QuinnBet: US Sports Acca Bonus. Place a US Sports accumulator bet with a minimum of two or more selections across any sport including American Football, Basketball & Ice Hockey. The minimum odds per selection must be greater than 3/10 (1.30). If it wins you will be credited with a free bet of up to £50. The free bet is calculated as a percentage of your winnings with the percentage varying depending on the number of selections. A winning double will lead to a 2% bonus, 5% for a treble, 10% for a 4-fold and 20% for a 5-fold or more. The free bet can be used on all QuinnSports events at minimum odds of 1/2 (1.5) or greater with maximum odds of 100/1. Any returns from a free bet will be paid back into your account minus the free bet stake. Other Ts & Cs apply.
888sport: Risk-Free Bet. Bet £10 or more in-play on trebles (or higher) with a minimum odds of 1/2 (1.5) per selection. Once your bet settles, you’ll receive a £30 Risk-Free Bet. First qualifying bet must be placed within 30 days of registration. Risk-Free Bet token is used with real cash. Cash is returned if bet loses. Further T’s & C’s apply.
Due to the huge range of matches and markets on offer, there is simply no way to guarantee that the particular sportsbook you are wagering at will always have the best basketball betting odds. However, what you can do is narrow your focus to specific matches and markets at a particular sportsbook and use odds comparison sites to see how they compare to other basketball betting sites. And if a particular site isn’t included you can head over and check the prices yourself.
However, if basketball odds really matter to you then you should always check out the price boosts section to see if any basketball bet boosts are on offer. And of course, you should be willing to sign up for lots of different basketball online betting sites, which will also means you’ll be able to collect lots of different new customer bonuses!
Continue Reading: Sports Betting Sites Canada
Two out of every three favourites have won their NBA matchups in the last five years. And that means multiple opportunities every week to make money by betting on the teams that are expected to win. However, with skinny prices attached to the favourites, you will struggle to make a meaningful profit. So it follows that combining multiple selections into an Acca will boost your price while still giving yourself a good chance of making a profit. Plus you can take advantage of the many multiple bet boost, insurance and loyalty club offers available at the best NBA betting sites today.
In any given NBA matchup, there is an underdog to go with the favourite, with that team available at a higher price because the bookies do not expect them to win. However, statistically speaking the underdogs have won one in every three games over the last five NBA seasons, which is more than you would perhaps expect. So the opportunities are out there and it’s just a case of finding them! And one way to do this is to zero in on specific teams’ records as underdogs in that period. For instance, the Houston Rockets have won just 25% of the games they have headed into as underdogs, while the Boston Celtics have triumphed in almost half the games they were expected to lose. And you can also zero in on the underdogs who are playing at home, or who are in advantageous spots relating to their opponents’ schedule.
Speaking of schedules, there are a whopping 82 games in the NBA regular season, played between October and April. That means teams will frequently play multiple games in a week. And if you keep an eye on the schedule you can identify some potentially profitable betting scenarios. The first is opposing teams who play back-to-back games over two nights with the second being away from home. Secondly, look out for teams heading out on the road for multiple games, as the effects of travel and living out of a suitcase for up to two weeks could mean they will be running on empty by the end of it. And finally, some teams will face brutal stretches of up to eight games in around 12 days, which makes us tired just thinking about it! And on the other side of the coin, look to bet on teams with what is called a “rest advantage”, meaning they have had more days to recover from their previous game than the opposition.
Some basketball betting strategies involve looking at specific elements of a team’s previous results, such as their average points total over the last five games. And that will help you decide whether to back their team points total to be over or under the basketball betting lines offered by the bookmakers. For instance, if the LA Lakers have put up an average of 102 points in their previous five games but the latest line is 96, then you should consider the “over” play.
In life, lots of things that you spend your money on need to be researched, whether it’s a big TV or a house! And betting is no different. To give your basketball bets the best chance of being successful you need to do your homework in order to make sensible selections. There are a huge range of statistics available both on basketball betting sites and on the internet in general. And if you aren’t making use of some of them you are certainly missing a trick!
Seeking out expert basketball betting tips can be very beneficial for a number of reasons. The first one is that if you don’t have time to do your own research, taking the sage advice of others is perfectly fine! Secondly, even if you have done your own research you could find a useful extra nugget of information in basketball betting previews. And lastly, novice bettors should certainly check out tips for betting on basketball as it will introduce them to the statistics they should be looking for when placing a basketball bet.
Every bettor needs to have a plan when it comes to how much they intend to spend on betting each week. Some set wagering limits for themselves each week and use deposit limit tools to help them if needed. Others manage their bankroll, a set sum in their betting account and they only use a small portion of it for each bet. However you do it you need to be aware of what you are spending and make sure you are only betting with funds you can afford to lose. And managing your finances effectively extends to your betting habits too, so you need to avoid common pitfalls such as chasing losses, betting when you’re bored and betting on events you know nothing about!
Taking the NBA as an example, there are a whopping 1,230 games in the regular season and once the campaign starts there’s at least one match pretty much every day and around 25 every week. And what that all means is if you’re not careful you will risk what is called betting burnout, which is basically stress caused by placing too many wagers! One way to combat this is to narrow your focus to a particular set of fixtures each week, over a couple of days for example. Or you could focus just on Western or Eastern Conference matchups.
It’s really important to remember that betting should first and foremost be an entertaining experience that enhances your enjoyment of a sporting event, with the extra bonus of potentially winning some cash along the way. Of course, we all get disappointed if a bet doesn’t go our way but if you find yourself getting overly stressed about your wagers because you are worried about losing money then we’d recommend taking a break from betting for a short while. Furthermore, if the actual process of researching, finding and placing bets is becoming a chore then taking a break could also be the answer. And following this advice will let you enjoy your favourite sporting events without worrying about your bets and rekindle your enthusiasm for when you resume betting again.
The National Basketball Association is the biggest and most popular basketball league in the world. The NBA consists of 29 teams from the USA and one from Canada, evenly split between the Eastern and Western Conferences. Each team plays 82 games in the regular season between October & April, with 16 reaching the playoffs. The remaining sides then play each other in a traditional knockout format, with the only difference being that each matchup is a best-of-seven series where the first team to reach four wins advances.
Once the field has been whittled down to one team from each conference, they face each other in the NBA Finals in another best-of-seven series for the right to be crowned champions! The 2022 champs were the Golden State Warriors, spearheaded by one of the best players in the NBA, Steph Curry.
Widely recognised as the top-tier basketball league in Europe, the Euroleague is like the Champions League of basketball as it features 18 of the best sides in Europe, who also play in their own leagues. And many of the names will be familiar to football fans too, such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and AS Monaco. Real Madrid are also the most successful EuroLeague side in history, with 10 titles to their name. The EuroLeague is also a huge draw and attracts the second-highest average attendances of any professional basketball league in the world, only behind the NBA. And of course, EuroLeague basketball betting is also popular.
College basketball is a big deal in the USA and attracts massive crowds, huge media interest and lots of traffic to NCAA basketball betting sites! And of course, the fact that many college players go on to be drafted by NBA sides only serves to increase the intrigue. The main college action takes place under the umbrella of the NCAA, with colleges from both America and Canada competing in three divisions. And the marquee event of the men’s college basketball season is “March Madness”, a single elimination tournament played in, you’ve guessed it, March of each year, where the national champions are crowned. And college basketball betting is also hugely popular at this time of year.
Basketball is very popular in Spain and their national league contains two of the best teams in Europe, Real Madrid and Barcelona. 17 teams are involved in Liga ACB and unlike many other professional basketball leagues, the bottom two sides are relegated each year and replaced by the top two sides in Spanish basketball’s second tier, LEB Oro.
Another of Europe’s biggest basketball leagues emanates from Germany. And while there are fewer of them, German basketball fans are just as fanatical as their football counterparts!
One of the newer leagues on this list, the CBA was formed in 1995 and comprises 20 teams, each of which is allowed a maximum of two foreign players. Many players from this league also move on to the NBA, including the most famous Chinese basketball star of all time, NBA legend and current CBA President Yao Ming.
The NBL is proof that basketball is a truly global sport, with teams from both Australia and New Zealand, competing in an eight-team league from October to February.
It was a tough decision, but our pick for the best basketball betting site is BetVictor. Right from the start you can pick from multiple new customer deals and once you’ve signed up there are loads of worldwide basketball leagues to pick from. There’s a loyalty club that you can qualify for by placing basketball wagers, as well as NBA price boosts and a great in-play betting service featuring lots of markets, statistics and a play-by-play summary of selected games. If you’re a basketball betting fan you won’t be disappointed and we would highly recommend checking them out!
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