Tipico Tips: Betting the NBA Playoffs

Betting on the NBA playoffs is a marathon, not a sprint. The marathon has only extended in recent years with the addition of more teams making it to the play-in games. Betting on basketball is something many have done all season long, but the structure and urgency of the playoffs changes the way you bet. If you are betting on the playoffs the same way you did during the regular season, then you failed to make some necessary adjustments that could have negative consequences for your bankroll. 

The first adjustment that needs to be made is for the way rotations change. The regular season is a grind. In order to keep players from being too worn down, teams will use a larger rotation. Not only will they play more guys, but the guys who play off the bench will see more minutes. When the playoffs roll around, it is all about winning and winning now. A team with a large 10-man rotation might cut that down to 8. Those secondary players who used to get 18-20 minutes a game are now playing 12-14 minutes or below. Those starters can routinely see 40 minutes or more at some points during the playoffs. That’s a bump of 5-10 minutes for some of these guys. One problem a lot of bettors have early in the playoffs is that they forget to make adjustments for the new reality of the minutes distribution. If a guy is playing 20% more minutes in the playoffs than he did during the regular season, it also stands to reason that his shot attempts, rebounds and any other stats need to be adjusted to account for the extra court time. The opposite works for secondary bench players. While the main rotation pieces need to have their stats adjusted up to account for the extra minutes, the bench guys need theirs adjusted down. A lot of money will be made playing over and under player props on the strength of the minutes played adjusting. 

Another question that tends to pop up often during the NBA playoffs is the concept of hedging a series bet. As the number of playoff teams remaining start dwindling, those who are holding any kind of futures ticket start to ask what to do. For 99% of people, 99% of the time, hedging is not the right move. Think about this: If you are holding a ticket on one of the longer-priced underdogs, you probably have anywhere from +200 to +400 in most of these series. It would require a substantial sized bet to really make a life-changing score at those odds. Most of the time the person asking me about hedging has a few hundred dollars risked to win $1,000 or less. These are the easy ones for me to advise people on. The main question you really have to ask yourself is can I afford to lose this? If you have a $200 bet at +300, you are looking at a profit of $600 if your team wins. In order to hedge this, you would have to bet on the opposite team and bet enough to at least break even on the $200 future wager you already have invested. Depending on the odds of that other team, this may require a wager of another $200 or likely more. Every dollar you wager to limit your downside, also limits your upside. Hedging your original bet now means that instead of a profit/loss equation of -$200/+$600, you now have made it so you have something like $0/+$350. It will not always work out this neat and easy, but the better question is whether you should even be looking to hedge when you do have the opportunity.

To me, the answer here is almost always no. If you initially thought betting on a team was the right play, then let it play out. You should never make an initial bet with the hope of hedging it one day down the road to win a little bit of money at zero to no risk. The exception to this rule is when we are talking about a life-changing type of money. That amount is different for every person out there. If we are talking about the difference between winning $10,000 or losing a $2,000 bet, then hedging makes some sense. Hedging a big bet like this would leave you with an equation of -$2,000/$10,000 that you can change to $0 risk and an upside of $6,000 or $7,000, then it makes sense. Like I said though, for 99% of people that is not the case. If you had a feeling about something, stick with your initial reaction and let it play out. Over the long run, your will have a better ROI if you do. 

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