College Basketball Betting Guide For The Novice Bettor

College Basketball Betting Guide For The Novice Bettor

Betting on College Basketball is extremely popular and March Madness is one of the biggest bet on events in the World. The 3 most common ways to bet on the NBA is Point Spread, Totals (Over/Under) and Money Line.

Point Spread

Betting The College Basketball point spread is the most common way to place a bet. The point spread is used to even out the playing field and attempt to get an equal number of bets on both teams. Let’s use a hypothetical game to explain this further. In this scenario The Duke Blue Devils are the favorite and the Syracuse Orange are the underdogs. The minus sign always means the favorite and the plus sign always means the underdog. So when you see Duke -3 that means Blue Devils are favored to win the game by 5 points. If you bet on the favored Blue Devils they have to win by 6 or more points for you to win the game. If you bet on Syracuse you would win the bet if the Orange either win the game or lose the game by 4 or less points. If Duke wins by exactly 5 then it is a push which means all sides get their money back. The payoff or loss on the bet depends on the odds. The most common odds for an NBA game would be -110. Which means you have to risk $110 to win $100.

Total

Betting on the College Basketball total (also known as Over/Under) is betting on the total number of points scored by both teams. College Basketball totals are usually set anywhere between 115 and 170 points. You will come across totals under 114 and over 170 but not too often. If the total is set at 145 points that means you can either bet the “Over” which means the 2 teams would have to score 146 or more points to win the game or you can bet the “Under” which means the two teams would have to score 144 points or under to win. If they score exactly 145 points it means a push and all bets are returned.

Money Line

The oddsmakers also allow you to bet on which team you think will win the game outright. In this scenario we have a game pitting the Kansas Jayhawks vs the Oklahoma Sooners. The oddsmakers have made Kansas the favorite and listed them at -150. They have listed the Sooners the underdog and listed them at +145. All that means is you have to bet $150 to win $100 on the Jayhawks and you only have to bet $100 to win $145 on the Sooners. The game can not finish in a tie so there must be a winner.

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