Live NBA Odds

Whomever wagers on sports should be aware of the fact that the oddsmakers that make the lines are motivated by profits. If they know that 80% of the public will be systems on Team A against the spread, they will move the line against Team A. For example, if the true advantage for Team A is 3 points, the fact that 80% of the public will be inclined to bet on Team A will force the spread to move anywhere from 1-3 points. Therefore one should monitor public perception when viewing the odds for NBA Basketball and NFL Football.

Good sports handicapping can help any bettor profit. The two common types of sports handicappers are the ones that use systems and the ones that use power ratings.

A systems bettor looks at a team's situational factors to make a wager. In our sports systems terms page, we defined systems as a set of situational factors that when pointing towards a team has shown considerable profit league-wide. A bettor such as this works hard to identify situational systems that predict teams that perform much better than their odds.

The downfall to systems is that Vegas can adjust their NFL and NBA Odds according to any system. The odds for Basketball and Football has always been known for being a great equalizer. Therefore blindly following systems that may have seemed successful in the past will come out to bite you once the spread is adjusted accordingly. A common system in the NBA that oddsmakers have adjusted for is the systems against a team on zero days rest or the systems for a team with double or triple revenge.

The second type of bettor is the power ratings bettor. Based on the teams involved, he makes a prediction on the final outcome of the game and compares it to the Vegas odds. The downfall to this is that there is very little analysis done on the situational factors so prevalent amongst systems bettors.

Vegas is very good at coming up with the odds for NBA and NFL because they use a variety of power ratings schemes that utilize some of the single-scope systems available and adjust the line by a point or two against the team the public has a propensity to bet on. This is the scheme used by Vegas to determine the NBA Odds and NFL Football Odds.

Think about all of the games that you lost by a half a point. If you were systems with the public then Vegas ate you alive.