Enjoy Basketball Betting & Odds on Bet777

Some of the maddest and most profitable gambling in the world has focused on basketball bets. Take 25-year-old Haralabos Voulgaris, for example, who wagered everything he had ($70,000) on the Los Angeles Lakers winning the 2000 Play-Offs. Their previous year, not even Kobe Bryant or the mighty Shaq could change the fact that they’d had an absolute stinker of a season. No one but Voulgaris had any reason to believe that the next season would be different. But he was right when everyone else was wrong and won just over a million. No stranger to a few million himself, the boxer Floyd “Money” Mayweather might just be as great a gambler as he is a fighter. He once tried to bet $5.9 million on a game between the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers (probably one of the largest basketball bets ever made). No single organisation would take the bet, so he spread it around several bookies. Just as well too, because he won, effectively doubling his money. And then there’s the story of the anonymous gentleman in Western Australia who placed A$5 on an NBA accumulator. He managed to correctly guess the winner of the 13 games held that week, turning his original stake into A$216,000. Then just to show it wasn’t a fluke, he did the same thing again a couple of weeks later, making a further A$86,000. How these basketball bets were calculated may never be known as the man has still never revealed his identity.

An Easy Game to Wager On

The way the game is structured gives you more angles for your basketball bets. It is not a game of two halves, it is a game of four quarters, so you might wish to bet on the score at the end of each quarter. You can pick your favourite player, and bet on how many points they will score, or how many assists, rebounds or fouls they accumulate. You can even bet on whether the final tally of points scored will be odd or even. The basketball odds for each of these are clearly displayed, and in the format you prefer. If you would rather your basketball odds were calculated as a fraction or in the American style, just click the button and they will all convert for you.

Then there is the spread bet, a whole new set of basketball odds for you to take into account. If a team is a favourite, it is given a negative point score (e.g. -5.5). An underdog will be given a positive version of the same score (+5.5). If you bet on the favourite, they need to win and by more than the spread, which in this case would be 6 points. The underdog doesn’t have to win to pay out – just as long as they come within 6 points, you’re good. To help you with your homework, you will find that Bet777 has statistics on each team, details that you will need to check these carefully when coming up with your strategy for basketball bets.

History of the game

Basketball is a relatively young sport, having been invented in 1891. A Canadian PE teacher, Dr James Naismith, was looking for a new way to keep his students fit and active during the Massachusetts winter. After a while, he came up with a game, wrote down some rules and fitted a peach basket to the wall of the gymnasium. Basketball was born, but not without a few early teething problems. For one, it proved to be a bit of a pain retrieving the ball every time a successful basket was made. You had to climb up and take the ball out every time. Therefore it was not long before they decided to punch the bottom out. Even then, the narrower bottom of the basket still did not allow the ball to fall through, so it had to be poked from the bottom with a long stick. As the game became more popular, the peach basket was replaced by a closed net, and finally an open one which allowed the ball to just fall through the hoop.

The ball was another problem. Early players used a soccer ball, which was mostly fine for the game as it was then played. But it wasn’t a fully circular ball, it was a cover sewn together around an inflated bladder, which was then tied shut with laces. These laces meant that the ball would bounce unpredictably and so there was no such thing as dribbling at the time. It was not until 1950 that Tony Hinkle developed the orange ball we see today, and ball control skills began to develop. Finally, they needed to create a backboard for the hoop. This had two benefits. Firstly, it meant that spectators could no longer interfere with the ball as it went in (the reason why it had been developed in the first place) and secondly, it allowed rebounds, which kept the game flowing.

Other rules made their way into the game over time. One, which we must all be thankful for, was to limit the number of players on a team to just 9, and then 5. Originally, there was no limit, and people played 50-a-side. Imagine trying to calculate the basketball odds for that!

Legend-makers

Basketball may be a team sport, but it is also an arena where an individual can really shine. Entire games, even seasons, can hinge on a single player’s ability to get that ball into the hoop. If you can do it in style, then so much the better, you’re set for life. Some names are known by people who have never watched a game of basketball in their lives. Household names known around the world like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson or Shaquille O’Neal.

While basketball is focussed mainly on the NBA, that does not mean that it is the only place to see the game. In addition to the Women’s NBA and NCAA leagues, basketball is enthusiastically played around the world. From Australia to Uganda, you’ll find basketball odds and games to suit you at any time of the year.

FAQs

Are bets settled on Overtime?

Only specific basketball markets at Bet777 include Overtime, so check beforehand.

What is handicap/spread betting?

This is when one team receives a virtual advantage or disadvantage to balance the pre-match odds.

Can I bet on player performance?

Of course you can! Points, rebounds, assists, it’s all there and available to bet on!