NBB, NBA and More
The re branding of the Brazilian local league a few years ago seems to have marked a commercial improvement of the sport in the country; some big cities of Brazil like Caxias do Sul that have over 600,000 people of population don’t have a big football team in good form since many years, which allowed local teams like their Caxias do Sul Basquete to become a city star.
The 2nd biggest city of Rio Grande do Sul isn’t alone as this story has repeated in several different cites of Brazil and even football clubs that used to have a Basketball division reopened it like Corinthians while others have totally revamped their department.
As the sport grows in the country, the interest in betting markets also grows as a natural consequence – the fans usually bet on the international games of the NBA as well as the local league.
We often say at our guides that some sports are not big enough to sustain a betting career, i.e. a professional punter couldn’t probably live out of bets of very specific sports that have few odds available in Brazil, but Basketball isn’t one of those sports: there are lots of NBA games every season both during the regular season and the playoffs season and the NBB is growing every year with great local coverage at cable tv channels such as SporTV.
Basketball Betting Odds
Although it is possible to bet using decimal odds, which is the most common format in Brazil, the bookies tend to display odds for two distinct kinds of selections, the normal 2-way bets on the winning team (which can result in significantly unbalanced odds between the underdogs and the favourite team) and the ‘spread’ which is a different name for ‘handicap’.
We believe the best thing for beginners is to bet on the match winner as the handicap bets require a bit more understanding about sports betting, however it is inevitable to explain a bit about spreads at a Basketball betting Guide.
Spreads and Handicaps
A handicap bet is a bet on a virtual result. If you have a major disparity between two teams, the market offers odds of similar ‘size’ that ‘balance’ this advantage.
The result is a bet on how many points the favourite team can overcome or how many points the underdog can ‘hold’ even if they lose. Handicaps can be as little as a few points or as big as dozens of points depending on the quality of the teams involved.
Perhaps the best way to learn and develop skills to bet on spreads is starting by picking teams that you consider favourites and see if they live up to your expectations and ‘beat the spread / handicap’.
The opposite bet, IE. the ‘positive’ spread or handicap can be a bit more complicated to bet on.
Over / Under bets work the same was as football bets and as you know now a bit about the spreads and what they mean, over and under bets are mathematical equivalents of ‘handicaps on the game’, IE. a bet on how many points a game can ‘produce’ or not.
