College Basketball Betting Explained: Learn, Apply, And Win!

Submitted by BetPhoenix Staff on Mon, 02/17/2020 - 10:25

If you love wagering, college basketball is just for you. There are tons of games, and excitement hits a peak with March Madness.

College Basketball Betting: Spread Bets

If you bet college basketball, chances are that you will end up making a spread bet sooner than later.

This is a wager type where you are making a bet on which team you believe will be performing better than the sportsbook actually expects it to.

Spread Betting Example

As with everything, it’s easier to understand with an example, here’s one for you:

Let’s say a top team such as the Baylor Bears are playing a lower team such as the Utah St. Aggies.

And so, for a clash like this the sportsbooks believe Baylor is going to take this one. More specifically, they believe the Bears are going to win by three or four points.

They then decide to average this prediction with a spread line of 3.5:

Baylor Bears – 3.5 (-110)
Utah St. Aggies +3.5 (-110)

So, what happens with this betting line?

The minus sign indicates the favorite among the two teams. And the plus sign signals the underdog, or less favorite to win the game.

As it’s stated, sportsbooks are predicting that the Bears are going to win by more than 3 and a half points.

And so, if they win by four points or more, you win the wager. On the other hand, if they win by 3 points, even though they won the game, you lose the spread bet because their final performance was lesser than expected.

Contrary, if you bet on the Aggies, you are predicting that they won’t lose by more than 3.5 points. If they win the game by any margin, you win. If they lose by 3 points or less you win. But, if they lose by four points or more, they lose.

Why the half points?

The answer is because there are no half points in college hoops, so these half points prevent pushes and ties.

If the sportsbook actually needs to push the action to one side, they will adjust that spread to make it more attractive on the line they need more weight on.

For example, if there’s a lot of action on Baylor, the sportsbook will make the necessary adjustments to discourage future wagers on the Bears. So, that -3.5 can easily turn into -4.5.

This means that Baylor now needs to win by more than four points, not three, and this can be disheartening for bettors hoping to catch the early -3.5 line.

On the other hand, now that the line is +4.5 for the Aggies, they can lose the game by four points, and you can still cash in with a wager on Utah St.

Now, you can also see a “-110” next to each one of the two available lines. This means that you will be paid out evenly regardless of which team you make your wager on.

That’s basically all you need to know to start getting spread action now!

College Basketball Betting: Money Line

If spread betting is a little bit on the complicated side of things for you, money line wagers are exactly what you want.

All it really matters with this type of bet is who wins and who loses, that’s it.

Let’s have another example, with the exact same teams:

Baylor Bears -165
Utah St. Aggies +145

Here, the minus again indicates the team that’s considered to be the least favorite of the two.

Now, the sportsbook needs to have a way to encourage or discourage betting.

When it comes to spread betting, they control this by moving the spread according to the current needs.

But, when it comes to money lines, all that’s required to encourage wagering on a side while discouraging wagering on the other is to alter the amount a bettor gets paid for picking up the right line.

Open a Betphoenix.ag wagering account, and start getting action on College Basketball Betting now!

College Basketball Betting: Over / Under

There’s also the chance to bet while not rooting for neither of the two teams!

And that’s possible when you get your action on the game’s TOTAL.

This means that you are making a wager on the total combined amount of points scored by the two teams at the end of the game.

Over / Under Betting Example

For example, let’s say that you made a bet on the game’s OVER, with the line being 222.

Let’s say that Baylor scored 114 points, while the Aggies scored 110.

This means that the total of points scored by the two teams at the end of the game was 224 points, which are two extra points than the total established by the sportsbook.

So, this means that those extra 2 points gave you the win. On a contrary case, if the final scored had been less than those 222, you would have lost the bet.

College Basketball Betting: Proposition Bets

Proposition bets are wagers that are related to the actual outcome of a game. Instead, these are bets where you will make a bet on whether or not a certain thing is going to happen during the match.

For example, you can make a bet about one of the teams involved “to win” the first quarter of the game.

You can also make a prop bet on whether or not a given player is going to end up the game with more or less points / blocks / steals / rebounds than the ones stated on a given betting line.

For example, you might find a line just like this:

LeBron James to score 30 points during the first quarter: Over / Under

Here, you will be betting if King James is actually going to score more or less than those thirty points.

And, there are also those prop bets that go beyond actual sporting action, such as how long the National Anthem will last, etc.

With that said, some of these bets will require you to do a previous analysis, and some are just pure entertainment.

So, make sure you can recognize the difference, and get your action with the right prop bets.

College Basketball Betting: Bracket Bets

March Madness equals brackets! Yes, the third month of the year it’s all about college hoops, as this is the time when NCAA basketball runs a 68-team bracket-style tourney to choose the National champ.

The tournament takes place between late March and early April, and the name of the tourney refers to the madness that goes with so many games being played in such a short period of time.

So, a bracket wager is where you actually pick up the winners of every single game.

And, you can start choosing your teams once all of them have been selected, but before the first match of the tournament takes place.

But, to win a bracket bet, you really don’t need to pick all the winners, as the scoring system is based on points.

For example, a victory from an underdog team at a later round will get you more points than a victory from a favorite at the very same stage of the competition.

So, after reading these lines, are you ready to start making wagers on NCAA college hoops?