How to become a profitable basketball tipster

After the feedback I got about my football betting blogs, I have decided to go back to my original topic of interest and do a similar article about basketball with strong emphasis on NBA betting. In my early blogging days I posted several blogs on NBA betting strategy, but I would say with the more experience I got, there are things that must be revised and discussed further. OLBG is growing quickly and there are more people showing interest in NBA betting, which is evident from the number of tips you can find in the basketball tipping section. Hopefully my ideas and observations would be useful to those willing to expand their knowledge of basketball betting.

THE ABSOLUTE BASICS

In basketball betting, with emphasis on NBA and college ball, the first steps are pretty similar to those in any other sport. A punter will have tons of difficulties becoming profitable if he/she has no idea what the sport is about, how the season is structured, which are the teams and players. While in betting we often rely on statistics before anything else, having only that approach could prove disastrous in basketball. IT IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST TO AVOID BETTING STRICTLY ON RECENT STATS. The reason for that is pretty simple - unlike football, in basketball there are way too many games teams play, often on a daily basis and there is obviously much more dynamism altogether. An example of that coming to mind has to do with back-to-back games in NBA. With 82 regular season games and up to 28 more in the playoffs, having to play twice in a matter of 24 hours will influence not only players fitness but also coach decisions, no matter which the team is. So if you see a hot favourite supported by the bare stats and then that favourite loses out of nowhere, check back at the schedule, the possibility of players being rested and line-ups rotated, etc.

Speaking of stats, however, they should not be overlooked completely. Once you are up to date with the current developments, the schedules and player reports, you could go back to the simple stats reading. Unlike football, however, I would not pay too much attention to form but look more at point differentials, margins of win/defeat rather than simply the win-loss column. Remember that unless a team is completely deprived of quality, it is not too often to see winning or losing streaks of ten or more games. If a team has won six games that doesn't automatically mean the team is a favourite against anyone as streaks come to an end eventually and analysing the streak in question statistically is way more important than simply acknowledging there is one.

Lastly, understanding the different markets and how they change in time is also crucial if one is to become a winning basketball punter. There is the simple winner selection available, but what is way more popular in the bball betting world are the spreads and totals as their movements and understanding how to follow them often lead to more success. The major market in basketball, unlike football, is the spread, which is equivalent to the handicap in football. The spread basically means you get a favourite placed in a disadvantaged position with certain points to cover in favour of getting decent value on that favourite (usually in the range of 1.85 to 2.00). For more information on the different markets, do revisit my old blog, dealing with that - Basketball Betting - Quick Guideline.

FINDING YOUR OWN STATEGIC APPROACH

If you are new to basketball betting, it would surely take time before you can detach yourself from the football-driven thinking and I myself have gone through that 15 or so years ago when I first started researching NBA betting. I have purposely stressed on NBA betting as opposed to all possible basketball leagues in the world, because there is plenty of information on NBA available and media coverage is something we can't go without in betting. There are very decent sites offering stats, up-to-date injury info and team strategic decisions on a daily basis. At the same time, NBA betting is basically like having one football league to deal with and research. College basketball is the next step in improving as basketball tipster as while not as well covered as the Big Game, it is easy to get access to info about it despite the much higher number of teams there. European basketball is slightly different to American and requires some experience in my eyes but if you insist in trying it out too, I would suggest starting with the Euroleague as local leagues are extremely obscure and rarely get any attention outside the country in question. Lastly, do not try to explore all the different market options if you have not followed basketball games carefully enough. Player markets, first basket markets or quarter winners markets are all very generous in terms of value, but there is way too much ground to cover before making informed decisions on what to pick there.

OLBG members add basketball betting tips every day and you can use those in your initial research about the sport as some of the reasoning on offer is extremely detailed.
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