Sports Betting Info – What You Need to Know for College Basketball, NBA

Gambling911.com offers a wealth of sports betting info for the NBA, College Basketball and March Madness: everything from how to shop for the best lines, an examination of power ratings and any past trends or injuries that might be relevant.  Follow us on Twitter at #DiscoverGambling

At the time of this writing, Gambling911.com’s record in free handicapping picks, mostly for Basketball games (both the NBA and College), hovered in the high 60 percentile. While past trends and recent head-to-head meetings between two teams plays an important role in placing a bet, the most critical sports betting info for us is what percentage of the betting public is backing a particular side and how the oddsmakers are reacting. 

More often than not, if 80% of those betting a particular game are backing one side over the other in College Basketball with a line of -2.5 and there is little movement in that number, the oddsmakers are likely confident that the public is on the wrong side.  Trying desperately to drive action onto the other side with an aggressive line movement may mean the opposite. 

Our method of making sports handicapping selections is to only focus on games that have lopsided action over the 60% mark be preferably more than 70%.  We ignore all other games no matter how big an event that matchup might be.  Nationally televised games are often some of the best to place wagers on since they tend to attract a lot more squares or recreational sports bettors that are more prone to gamble on the favorite.  In these situations oddsmakers tend to inflate the line while gamblers insist on still siding with the big public team.

As far as getting your money’s worth placing a wager, it is sometimes wiser to bet an underdog to win outright with payouts sometimes greater than 2-1.  Power rankings are not always easily adaptable due to other underlying variables but in other cases they most certainly are.  Occasionally, you may find that a +3 home underdog should actually be a -1 favorite.  When these situations present themselves, a money line (outright) bet on the underdog might prove rewarding.

And finally, when betting the NBA, you always want to look at whether a team is playing two nights in a row, paying special attention to the second night of play.  Even a very good team playing double overtime the night before and winning will be worn out the second straight night.  Look at power ratings and shed one or two points off the posted spread.  The public will generally back the better team regardless of the back-to-back play.

- Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com