top of page

Anton Hyberg  -  Sept 1

​

The Basketball Tipster

Basketball is indisputably one of the most popular sports in the world. With an estimated 450 million fans worldwide, basketball generates roughly USD 20.3 billion worldwide in 2024 and growing 12.6% annually. High-stakes events like the NBA Playoffs or FIBA World Cup are drivers for the growing number of tipsters, and why their role is critical in terms of better guidance.

Basketball Betting Basics: What Every Fan Should Know

​​​​​​​​​

Driven by the global popularity together with in-game betting and usage of innovative mobile apps from providers such as Tipsto, the basketball betting market is booming. In order to understand basketball betting, one must first be familiar with the main types of bets and how they work.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​An excellent source for basketball betting is provided by The Dunkest - Guide to Basketball Betting. The simplest bet type is the Moneyline bet, which focuses on picking the winner of the match, while point spreads account for the margin of victory. Total points scored in a game can be bet through Over/Under wagers, while odds formats such as American, Decimal, and Fractional format dictate payouts.

Screenshot 2025-09-08 at 9.50.15 pm.png

​​On Tipsto’s free, user-friendly app, the various outcomes are available, including Match winner, Asian handicaps, Total points, and Point milestones.  After becoming familiar with these concepts, one can focus on prop bets on player stats or half-time or quarter-bets of a game.

In basketball, it is also possible to bet on the MVP of the championship winner but with these types of bets making a precise probability estimation is somewhat challenging even for the most experienced professional bettors. If a basketball bettor has deep understanding of the sport, is active and alert, focusing on real-time events as the game unfolds, in-play betting is a lucrative choice.

 

In order to gain edge and achieve success, it is crucial to actively follow momentum shifts, injuries or foul troubles for maximizing returns, for instance. However, the bettor should always keep in mind the pure class (strength) of the team, avoiding over-reacting to any one factor. At the end of the day in-play betting, too, is about estimating probabilities, taking into account dozens of different factors.

 

Consequently, reacting only to the events on the court is not enough to make a long-term profit as thousands, or even millions of other bettors probably make more or less the same observations.

What To Keep In Mind

 

 

Basketball offers an abundance of valuable statistical resources, including Player Efficiency Rating (PER), True Shooting %, or points and rebounds. However, this does not necessarily make a long-term profit generation easier than it would have been without those tools.

 

The bettor has to always keep in mind disciplined risk management, where limiting stake sizes and/or diversifying wagers are good ways to mitigate risks. In addition, while NBA is the most followed and betted basketball league in the world, EuroLeague with its high volatility and unpredictability as well as NCAA basketball with frequent roster changes provide immense opportunities for tipsters and basketball bettors alike. Therefore, through online forums and tipster communities such as Tipsto, basketball enthusiasts can sharpen their strategies and increase their activity levels by sharing insights, analysis, and picks.

 

Similar to the cricket tipster space in its potential, the global fan engagement, data-rich analytics, and online accessibility of basketball provides lucrative opportunities for tipsters who focus on this game! Trustworthy tipster platforms like Tipsto, with extensive tipsters’ track records, carve a niche by emphasizing fairness, transparency, and results-driven advice, especially for high-demand basketball events. 

​

Basketball-specific factors to remember

​

​

  • Missing a key player affects the probabilities more than in most team sports. However, over-reactions on the betting market are still common.

  • Similarly to tennis (unlike in, e.g. soccer and ice-hockey betting) betting on the heavy (odds over 4.00/+300) underdog (moneyline) against a highly motivated opponent is, on average, a terrible strategy.

  • Especially in the NBA, no team is fully motivated (or physically at their best level) in every regular season game, especially away from home. The reasons are many. For example, after facing a fierce rival in an important game - in the next game even a very strong team can perform surprisingly poorly as the players are both mentally and physically drained. These matches are commonly known as “letdown games”. The match schedule/calendar plays a much bigger role than for example in top-level football.

bottom of page