Basketball Betting

Basketball Betting

by Tom Wilkinson

Basketball betting really begins to take center stage for most sports gamblers and many of the sportsbooks in mid to late January. Although basketball season officially starts in November, it is usually after the NFL regular season before serious action takes place. November and December are months in the college basketball season that most teams play non-conference games and it is usually not until January that things really heat up. The NBA season begins in November, but again, it really doesn’t take hold for the betting public until football season has died down.

Basketball betting can really be broken down into three major parts for both NBA and college basketball. The NBA basketball betting season has the first two months of the season (November and December), the meat of the regular season, (January through March), and then the playoffs. College basketball has a similar timetable. It starts with the early part of the season, (the non-conference schedule in November and December), moves to the meat of the season (January and February), and concludes with March Madness. When you look at your basketball betting it is important to understand what part of the season is, and the things that change in each one.

When we look at basketball betting we usually want to focus on either the NBA or college. It is difficult sometimes to split our focus between the two sports and still remain effective with our handicapping. I would break that down even further if you are considering college basketball betting. There are so many college basketball teams on the betting board, (over 200 of them actually), and we really need to narrow our focus if we want to be successful at college basketball betting. There are many ways to narrow your focus when betting college basketball, so I will mention just a few. You can concentrate on just one or two conferences when betting basketball. You could choose, for example, to bet just the Big 10 and Big 12. That would keep your concentration on just a selected number of teams. I know it is much easier to follow, watch, read about, and handicap 22 teams instead of over 200. Another thing you could choose to do is only bet games if you have a huge line advantage. I refer to comparing your power ratings against the betting line. You can get those ratings from anywhere; Sagarin, Massey, etc, or you can come up with your own. You could then play games where you saw a big line value in your favor. That is another option to narrow your basketball betting focus.

Whatever you decide to do when betting basketball you always want to remember that it is a very long season. It stretches from November all the way into June. That is nearly 8 months of action. Be sure and keep calm, stay focused, and remain disciplined. You definitely want to be around in June so take some of the things we have talked about and narrow your focus this basketball betting season.