Basketball Betting

Basketball is one of the most popular sports in the world, and despite being over 100 years old, is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. This is because many countries who had not established their own professional leagues are now doing so, which is only a good thing for basketball fans and those who enjoy Basketball betting.

Obviously, the biggest league in the world is the NBA Championship, which generates over $4.7 billion in revenue per year. This amount is dwarfed by the amount that used to be spent on illegal basketball betting – the American Gaming Association estimated that $150 billion was spent annually on basketball betting. Now that the US is bringing in legal sports betting, this may change, but the interesting thing is that the NBA is not the main subject of all this betting. Instead, the majority of basketball betting centres around the NCAA College Basketball championships, which takes place between March and April. And it’s this one, not the NBA Championship, that remains one of gambling’s greatest unclaimed prizes.

March Madness

Every year before the NCAA College basketball tournament begins, millions of Americans create a ‘bracket’. This is their prediction of the outcome of all the games in the entire tournament, including quarter- and semi-finalists and of course, the final. Despite the huge amount of people (an estimated 47 million) who do this every year (including Barrak Obama, who posted his bracket on the White House website while in office), no one has ever won.

It’s no surprise when you look at the basketball odds for this. There are 9.2 quintillion possibilities. The best anyone has been able to manage is to correctly predict the outcome of the first 39 games (out of 67 in total). That’s not to say there has not been plenty of encouragement to get involved. In 2014, billionaire businessman Warren Buffet offered a prize of $1 billion to any of his employees who could do it.

Big Names, Bigger Money

Some of the highest paid athletes in the world are basketball players. Not only can someone with that level of talent change the Basketball odds, they can alter the economy of an entire state. A 2017 study of LeBron James’s impact on the city of Cleveland came up with some interesting findings. James returned to the Cleveland Browns in 2014. During the period of his tenure there, ticket prices went up from about $25 at one point to $386 per game, and tickets sold out immediately. Revenues at local restaurants and bars went up by 13%; the number of people employed by those places went up 23%. So if you’ve ever wondered whether a person is worth that $100 million contract, the answer is: yes!

Of course, a big name in an NBA team does not always automatically equal results. Sometimes, backing a lower profile, more consistent team is the best way to approach basketball betting. If the big-name stars are what attract you to the game, then don’t bet on their team – instead, bet on them. Specifically, bet on how many points that individual is going to score in the game. Following the progress of an individual throughout a season is significantly easier to manage than attempting to track a whole team. It’s also easier to judge whether the basketball odds for that person scoring a particular amount are worth a flutter or not.

Dream Team

One of the great traditions of the Olympic games is that the athletes that compete in it are not professionals. However, the USSR, traditionally less interested in the rules than most other countries, would field professionals posing as amateurs. This culminated in the USA losing to the USSR and getting a bronze medal, their worst ever finish. The rules were changed shortly thereafter, which led to the creation of what came to be known as the “Dream Team”.

These were the best of the best in the NBA. Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley… the list of household names goes on and on. The Dream Team went on to utterly dominate the competition. The closest any other team could get to the US team was Puerto Rico, who lost by 38 points. If the Olympics are coming up, it’s a good time to check out the cream of the talent that is available in the NBA. It will make a huge difference to the basketball betting you do in the future.

A Nice Bit of Scandal

In 2007, the US basketball world was rocked by a betting scandal. There have been betting scandals in sports before, but this was particularly outrageous because it involved a referee. Tim Donaghty used his inside knowledge of teams, players and other referees to influence the basketball odds – not to mention, making decisions that could have influenced the outcome of the game.

It was a huge deal in the USA. Many pundits feared that it was the beginning of the end for the NBA, stating “the general American public has been turning away since the end of the Bulls' dynasty, and this fiasco isn't going to help bring it back”. (Relax, the NBA is doing just fine) Some interesting facts emerged about game-fixing in the aftermath. It was discovered that a crooked referee could fix the game as much as 75% of the time. Also, if a game is suspected of being fixed, the spotlight almost always falls upon officials. This is because players are getting paid too much money for it to be worth their while to try to throw a game. But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the investigation was the revelation that over half of all NBA referees had bet on games at some point in their careers, though most had not sought to change the basketball odds.

The rules were of course changed almost immediately, though not in the way you might expect. Instead of cracking down on the referees, the rules on whether they could gamble or not were relaxed a bit (though they still weren’t allowed to bet on the NBA). Also, the time between the announcement of the referee and the start of the game was pushed back from 90 minutes before the start of the game, to the morning of the game. This reduced the value of this information because more people could learn about it.