A Guide to Playoffs Betting Odds

How to decipher the playoff odds and pick your winning team 

The NBA season may be over, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t anymore matches to bed on. The best is still to come… 

The NBA Playoffs are arguably the most exciting part of the post-season calendar. Watching your team battle their way through a 7 round knockout competition – nothing else can compete with that excitement. They’re even good fun for the neutral to follow along. 

However, this new, more exciting format at the end of the season brings a new set of odds. If this is your first time betting on the Playoffs then it can all seem a little overwhelming at first. 

In this article, we are going to help you decipher the odds when betting on the NBA Playoffs. We’ll even throw in a few helpful tips about how to pick out a winning team. 

NBA odds explained  

You may be used to seeing betting outs on sporting matches look like: 

    9+1 (10% chance of victory) 

However, NBA Playoff odds are a little bit different. You may for example, see a team’s chance of winning shown as: 

    +200 

With other teams odds being shown as: 

    -150 

What do these mean? How much will you win on your bets? And can you translate these odds into classic fractional odds? 

A team that is rated as +200, would be given the fractional odds of 2 + 1. Let us show you why. 

American odds are worked out using a calculation that assumes you bet $100 on a match. 

If the team’s odds are +200, it means that you will win $200 for every $100 you bet. This is the same odds as 2 + 1 –  which shows you the winnings in $1 rather than $100. 

A team whose odds are 150, would have 1 + 1.5 fractional odds. 

If the odds are -150, you would only be winning 2/3 of what you bet. For every $100 you bet, you will win $67 (rounded up). 

The best odds to bed on are short odds (negative numbers in this case). They seem less glamorous, and your payout is smaller. But you are much more likely to win. 

Long odds, like +900, may seem like a good bet, as you will win a lot of money if you are right. However, you are much less likely to win on these types of bets. Often they are not worth the risk. 

The best two bets to make 

The NBA Playoffs feature over 100 basketball matches played by 16 teams. 

With betting agencies offering the chance to bet on hundreds of variables, it can be all too easy to get swept away in the tournament and lose a lot of money. 

If you are looking to finish the tournament with a profit, then we recommend you stick to making two types of bets – betting on the results of single games, and placing a bet on the overall winner of the tournament before it starts. 

Betting on any type of variable is too risky. We also recommend avoiding placing bets while games are happening. This is a feature that lots of online bookies offer now. It is best to avoid playing bets while your adrenaline is pumping. 

Betting game to game 

The first type of bet that we recommend you place during the NBA Playoffs is individual match bets. 

With over 100 games happening across the whole tournament (even more if you include the Play-In rounds), these types of bets will be your bread and butter for the tournament. 

Thanks to the seeding system, the odds of a team winning are a lot easier to work out during the Playoffs. However, they can sometimes be misleading. 

When picking a team to bet on you should think of the following things: 

  • What is their winning record against the other team like? 
  • Are they missing any key players due to injury? 
  • Are they playing at home or away? 

All of these things can affect a team’s performance on the day, so bear them in mind before placing your bets. 

You should try to play match results bets on the day of the match. If you bet too far in advance there may be a change of circumstances that puts your money in danger. 

Note – fewer games were played in the 2020 and 2021 Playoffs, due to Covid-19 restrictions. However, it looks like the post-season tournament will return to normal in 2022. 

Betting on an overall winner 

The other bet we would recommend you consider placing is betting on an overall winner of the tournament before it begins. 

Betting before the Tournament has started is the key to getting the best odds. But it does make it harder to find a safe bet. 

As the bookies see a team’s performance during a tournament, they will start to change their odds to reflect this. If a team wins its first round 4-0, then their odds could go from +200 to +50. 

You will get yourself the best odds by placing your bets before the start of the tournament. 

Does how a team has been seeded affect their chance of winning? 

Theoretically, no. Any team could win the tournament. However, in real life, things just don’t work out that way. 

In the 74 year history of the NBA Playoffs 72 of the years have been won by the #1 seed (50), #2 seed (16), or #3 seed (6). So, if you’re looking for a safe team to bet on, we wouldn’t recommend looking outside of the top three seeds. 

An 8th seeded team has never won the NBA Playoffs. The only teams outside of the top three seeds that have won were the 4th seeds (1963) and the 6th seeds (1995). 

Teams from the East have won 38 NBA championships, while teams from the west have one 34. 

The Lakers (32 appearances) and the Celtics (21 appearances)  have both won 17 championships. However, the Bulls have the best winning record. They have played in 6 Playoffs and won them all.