Factors to Consider When Betting on Basketball

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Sports Betting
Factors to Consider When Betting on Basketball
By Kelly Reynolds
Mar 10, 2002, 21:37

Basketball betting is an aspect of sports wagering that is dependent on several different factors that help determine the outcome when betting on basketball. Most importantly, basketball betting requires an understanding of what the odds are and how they are set. Also playing an extremely important role in basketball betting is the number of games that a team is forced to play back to back.

When the basketball betting line is set by the odds maker his principal purpose is to generate the same amount of money bet on each side of the game. The basketball betting line set by the odds maker is referred to as the points or odds that determine the conditions under which the wager is placed. The line used most often for basketball betting is the pointspread. When using a pointspread to bet on basketball, additonal points are either subtracted from the favorite team or added to the underdog. Generally, when a pointspread for basketball betting is set the home team is listed in all capital letters, and the favorite team is printed on the left side with the pointspread in the middle.

Directly affecting the basketball betting pointspread are games that are played back to back. When a team is forced to play two back to back games while traveling on the road there is an enormous decline in the performance of the players in the second game. Even if a team does win the second game in a back to back series, chances are that they will not cover the basketball betting pointspread set by the odds makers. This is due to the fact that most basketball betting odds makers take the back to back factor into consideration when setting the pointspread.

When betting on basketball there are several different factors that must be taken into account. While the two most important basketball betting factors are the pointspread and the role of back to back games, there are an infinite amount of other elements to consider. The bettor who is able to discern the factors that an odds maker overlooks will be victorious when betting on basketball.