Betting on basketball is getting much more popular these days, and we know that lots of you have shown an interest in this. In fact, this question was submitted directly to Which Bookie from Jamie, one of our regular visitors. Jamie wants to know which bookie offers draw bets on basketball.
This is a great question, because if you bet on basketball you’ll know that games cannot actually finish as a draw. There has to be a winner, so if the game finishes as a tie after normal time, it goes into overtime. Because of this, the vast majority of online bookies only offer odds on either team to win. This is known as the “game line” and usually looks something like this.
A typical NBA Game Line
In this example, you can bet on either the Warriors or the Pacers to win outright. Or you can bet on them to cover the spread (this is basically a handicap bet).
But what if you want to bet on the tie at full time? After all, it’s not uncommon for a basketball game to finish with the scores level and go into overtime. The Money Line bets do include overtime, so if you backed the Warriors and they won in overtime, your bet would still win at the same odds. However, if you actually wanted to predict that the game would go into overtime, many bookies don’t have a market for that in this game.
Betting On The Tie in Basketball
Fortunately, if you look a little further afield, you can find a way to do this. For example, here’s the same game at 888sport.
888sport let you bet that the game will go to overtime
As you can see, 888sport are offering better odds on the Pacers and slightly less on the Warriors compared to the previous example. But there’s an extra market here called “To go into Overtime” which is, in effect, the same thing as backing the tie at the end of normal time. The odds on that happening are a juicy 13/1.
So if you thought this was going to be a close game which could easily end in a tie, that would be a great bet to place at big odds. You could back your chosen team as well, and if they won in overtime then both bets would pay out!
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There aren’t many online bookies that offer this market. But as you can see, it throws up some interesting opportunities. Taking this approach in close games could be very profitable if you manage your stakes correctly. So it’s definitely something that knowledgeable punters could take advantage of.
How Often Do Basketball Games Go InTo Overtime?
If you’ve found a bookie which offers a ‘To go to into overtime’ market, then you’ll want to know the likelihood of that happening so that you can determine whether the odds on offer for this market have value.
The table below shows the number of NBA games which went into overtime over three seasons.
NBA Overtime Stats
2013/2014
2015/2016
2017/2018
Average
Number of games played
1230
1230
1230
1230
Number of overtime games
79
76
77
77.3
Percentage of games which go to overtime
6.4%
6.2%
6.3%
6.3%
As you can see, the number of games which ended in a draw and went into overtime were relatively consistent with there being an average of 6.3% of NBA games.
So how do we know if the odds on a basketball game going to overtime have value?
To do this, we simply need to convert the probability into odds.
To convert the implied probability into odds we can use the following formula:
(1 / probability) x 100 = decimal odds
So, with a probability of 6.3%, the odds would be:
(1/6.3) x 100 = 15.87
Remember that these are decimal odds so as a fraction, the odds would be 14.87/1
Therefore, if the odds you are being offered are below 14.87, they may not have value.
However, there are a lot of factors which come into play when determining the probability of an outcome. For example, if a strong team is playing a weaker team then the likelihood of a draw and the game going into overtime is a lot less than when two evenly-matched teams are playing each other. Therefore, the implied probability would be greater and so will be the odds.
Some teams may also have a better record when it comes to winning in overtime. For example, the table below shows a list of NBA teams and their win rate when their games have gone into overtime.
Team
Overtime Games
Overtime Wins
Win %
Lakers
14
12
85.71%
Nuggets
7
6
85.71%
Mavericks
14
10
71.43%
Jazz
14
10
71.43%
Heat
20
14
70.00%
Spurs
15
10
66.67%
Nets
17
11
64.71%
Magic
14
9
64.29%
Bobcats
20
12
60.00%
Celtics
21
12
57.14%
Pistons
18
10
55.56%
Hornets
15
8
53.33%
Thunder
23
12
52.17%
Bulls
26
13
50.00%
Suns
14
7
50.00%
Cavaliers
12
6
50.00%
Clippers
12
6
50.00%
Hawks
10
5
50.00%
Bucks
20
9
45.00%
Rockets
18
8
44.44%
Knicks
15
6
40.00%
Sixers
18
7
38.89%
Raptors
11
4
36.36%
Warriors
14
5
35.71%
Wizards
14
5
35.71%
Twolves
10
3
30.00%
Grizzlies
22
6
27.27%
Kings
20
5
25.00%
Blazers
16
4
25.00%
Pacers
10
2
20.00%
Of course, these stats can change from season to season depending on a number of variables such as the players in the team and other factors but up-to-date season stats for each team should be able to help in determining whether or not a ‘to go into overtime’ bet has value.
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