One of the easiest ways to become a better sports bettor is to ensure that you’re always getting the best line. Various sportsbooks will sometimes price the same markets differently. These differences are typically small – five to 10 cents of juice or half a point on a spread – but they can make a tremendous impact on your bottom line. Even if you’re saving just five cents on 100 bets each year, that’s still a lot of additional money for your bankroll.
That’s where Fantasy Life’s College Basketball Betting Odds Grid comes into play. The Odds Grid allows you to easily compare betting lines across four of the biggest online sportsbooks – DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and Caesars. By comparing odds across the industry, you can ensure that you’re getting the best price on each wager that you make.
The NBA Odds Grid features three separate types of wagers: spreads, moneylines, and totals. Each wager will be priced separately by each sportsbook, so just because a particular location is offering the best price on one bet doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll also have the best odds on the other bets.
Spread Bets
Just like in the NFL, point spreads are used in basketball betting to try to balance the scales between two uneven teams. If the best team in college basketball is playing against the worst, it wouldn’t be particularly difficult to select which team is likely to win outright. By adding a point spread, the better team will now need to win by a certain margin of points in order for the bet to be a winner.
Moneyline Bets
Another way that the sportsbooks try to balance the scales is with moneyline bets. There are no point spreads in this type of wager; you simply need to pick which team you think is going to win.
However, the two teams can often be priced very differently. If you want to pick the favorite on the moneyline, they might be priced at -200. That means you would need to risk $200 in order to try to win just $100. If you were to bet on the underdog instead, you might then get plus odds such as +150. That means that a $100 wager would win $150 if the underdog were to successfully pull off an upset win.
Total Bets
Total bets have nothing to do with which team is going to win but rather how many total points will be scored. You can select whether you think the two teams will combine to go “over” or “under” a listed total.
Reading college basketball odds can be a bit confusing at first. However, we have a complete guide available to help you with the process.
Essentially, whenever you see a “minus sign” in college basketball betting, that team can be considered the favorite. That applies to both point spread and moneyline bets. If a team is -3.5 on the spread – or 3.5-point favorites – they would need to win the game by at least four points to cover. If they’re -150 on the moneyline, they’re also favored to win the game outright.
A “plus sign” works as the opposite. Those teams are considered underdogs on the spread and on the moneyline. Underdogs have the potential to lose the game outright while still covering the spread, and they would net plus-money on the moneyline if they were to secure a victory.
Oddsmakers for each sportsbook set preliminary odds based on “power ratings”. Each team is essentially assigned a number representing how much better or worse they are than the average team that season. When two teams are squaring off against each other, all the sportsbooks need to do is use their power ratings to determine the spread.
However, that’s just a starting point. A number of different factors then go into the equation. Injuries, home-court advantage, travel, rest advantages, and public perception are all factors in setting the lines.
One of the most interesting parts about sports betting is that the market is dynamic. It’s constantly evolving with lines sometimes changing right up until tip off.
A number of different factors can move lines, but money is the biggest. The “sharps” – aka professional bettors – can use their money to tell the sportsbooks which lines they think are incorrect. If a four-point underdog is getting tons of professional action, the oddsmakers will adjust and drop that team down to +3.5 or +3.0 and continue adjusting the line as needed.
Injuries are another factor that play a huge role, particularly when it involves a key player. If a star point guard were to be ruled out, the spread would then likely adjust by at least a few points to account for a backup getting the start.
Occasionally, the sportsbooks won’t list a game if they are waiting for information. This happens primarily when a key player is dealing with an injury. If the sportsbook doesn’t know if that key player is going to play, it then becomes extremely tough to set a line.