NCAAB Betting Guide

A Basic College Basketball Betting Guide: Types of Betting on Basketball

The college basketball season is one of the most interestingly structured seasons. It is unlike their collegiate counterpart, football, along with their professional counterpart, the NBA. There is truly nothing like it.

The season has a lot of moving parts so let’s analyze how the season is structured.

It is separated into two parts. There is conference play and non-conference play. This will count for your overall record, your strength of victory, and the teams rank in the AP Poll. 

Once the season is over, each conference will host a tournament prior to March Madness. The winner of each tournament will get an automatic bid into the Big Dance. 32 of the 64 teams in the NCAA Tournament are selected that way and the other half get bids based on their success.

March Madness is a 68-team single elimination tournament with seven rounds. It just takes one game for one team to go from a low seed to a threat!

All teams go into that tournament with hopes of heading to the final four and only one will be crowned national champion!  March Madness is one of the best times of the year for sports fans. Bets are made all over, and in every round. Millions, and even billions of dollars are bet on the NCAA Tournament each year.

Types of betting on Basketball

Like in most styles of betting on basketball, there are multiple fashions in which you can bet on NCAA Basketball.

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular ones:

Single 

The single bet is a very simple concept. When betting on a single, it is when you bet on one thing to happen. This would more likely than not look like a player prop.

An example of this would be like “Marcus Carr scores over 15.5 points”. All that needs to happen is that Marcus Carr would need to score more than 15 points in order for this bet to hit. It would rely on nothing else to happen. It is very true to its name, seeing as it is a single or straight bet. It’s very straightforward. This seems to be pretty popular, but doesn’t pay out crazy amounts. But, when bettors are excited about a certain aspect of the game, and they want to bet it – they place a single bet.

Point spread

This style of betting on basketball has become very popular since its inception. This is available for every matchup. This is a way to balance betting on bad teams in an attempt to level the playing field. In college sports, most programs are not created equal. The top programs will oftentimes play against teams that are not up to their caliber. So in order to make the odds just, each company has its own odds maker who will determine the amount of points a team is expected to win. 

For example, Baylor is playing Alcorn State. Baylor is the best team in the country so how would these two facing off against each other be fair to bet on? The Bears are favored by 34.5 points so in order for the bet to hit, Baylor must beat Alcorn State by 35 points If Baylor wins by less than 35 points, those betting on the Alcorn State point spread would win because Baylor did not cover the larger spread. 

Point spread betting is the most popular way of betting a game, and again may not be a major pay-out, but would really depend on how much the bettor wagered.

Moneyline

Moneyline is less complicated than spread. It is what most typically think of when betting. Moneyline is when you bet on a team to outright win a game. Those that are favored in a game will have negative odds and those that are in positive odds are not favored in the matchup. It is pretty straightforward. You can check our moneyline betting.

For instance, Illinois (-650) is the favorite over Maryland (+475). Illinois is the favorite in this matchup but if you bet on them, they would not make you as much money if you bet on Maryland. If you were to bet $100 on Illinois, your payout would be $115.50 which would only win you an additional $15.50. However, if you were to bet that same amount on Maryland, the total payout would be $575 with an additional $475 won! Odds may fluctuate depending on the difference in talent. 

Totals

This type of betting on basketball is very simple. This is the combined total points of both teams. Good offensive teams will score a lot of points so in those matchups, look to hit the over. You can either elect to take the over or under on a point total. 

For the Washington vs Utah game, the point total is over/under 149 points. If the combined number of points is over 149, then the over hits but if they score less than 149 points, the under hits. 

Parlay

Parlays have a lot of moving parts to them but have more recently become one of the more popular ways to bet in college basketball. There are a number of ways to make a parlay. The way in which you do this is putting together a mix of bets. Whether it be totals, spread, moneyline, or prop bets, you can make a parly out of anything listed above. In order to win the parlay, every bet you make must be successful. 

If you bet on an 8-leg parlay, all eight bets must hit in order to have a winning slip. Certain apps will let you cash out early if you fear it will not hit the full leg. But, in order to win a complete parlay, all bets must hit.

Bracket

This style of betting is inclusive to college basketball. There is no bet quite like the march madness bracket. As is mentioned in the description of the season, March Madness is known for their tournament. People will spend minutes or days on brackets in order to create the perfect bracket. 

The way the bracket works is you pick the winner of each matchup all the way until the national championship. Every round you pick correctly, you get a certain amount of points. Depending on how you bet, you could win big on having the best bracket out of all your friends. 

By getting a perfect bracket, you could win trillions of dollars. Everyone is on the quest for the one perfect bracket. However, you should not get your hopes up. Nobody in the history of creating brackets has had the perfect one. Everyone gets excited but it’s a one in 9.2 quintillion chances of getting the perfect bracket but don’t let that stat discourage you from your bracket.

How to bet

The easiest way to bet is online! There are tons of bookies and websites available online for you to gamble on college basketball. In the United States, you will want to make sure you are in a state that allows for legal sports betting online.

If your state is not available online, you will need to head to the local sportsbook, if it’s legal there. Obviously, if it is not available in your state, you will need to head to a local state that is allowed to bet on sports legally. 

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