NBA Las Vegas Odds

Las Vegas and sports betting go together like Spike Lee and the New York Knicks.

There was a time when the only place we could legally get down an NBA wager was while inside a Las Vegas sportsbook.

Today, thanks to the World Wide Web and the legalization of sports betting across Canada and the United States, we can place our favorite NBA wagers from the comfort of our living room.

Betting on an NBA basketball game is not for the faint of heart.

The action is non-stop, with momentum swings occurring like punches landing in a heavyweight boxing match.

With the popularity of the three-point shot increasing each year, no lead seems safe on the NBA hardwood some nights.

Whether you like to play moneylines, point spreads, totals or prop bets – we have all your NBA odds and insights covered below.

2023-’24 NBA Teams To Beat

Boston Celtics +400 To Win NBA Championship

How many teams can have an off-season where they lose their best defender, the NBA sixth man of the year, and still see their championship odds improve to the point they are the betting favorite?

Marcus Smart was drafted by the Celtics, spent nine seasons and almost 600 games with the Celtics, and was moved this off-season.

Malcolm Brogdon played just one season with Boston, coming off the bench in all 67 games he played. Brogdon was so good in that role that he was named the NBA’s 6th-Man Award winner.

In their place will be Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday. Of course, Boston is still led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

Last year, the Celtics finished with 57 regular season wins, finishing one game behind Milwaukee for the league’s best record.

This year, Celtics fans will quickly compare their squad against the new-look Bucks and try to determine which of these powerful Eastern Conference teams is better set to make a long playoff run.

Milwaukee Bucks +400 To Win NBA Championship

No NBA team brought more excitement for their fans this past offseason than the Milwaukee Bucks.

Milwaukee was already considered an elite team with 58 wins and the best regular season in the NBA last year.

With the addition of Damian Lillard, the Bucks now have two of the biggest superstars in the game playing on the same roster.

To start the season, Milwaukee is tied at +180 with Boston to win the Eastern Conference.

Milwaukee won the Eastern Conference regular-season crown last year but was upset in the first round of the playoffs by the Miami Heat.

To squeeze Lilliard onto the roster, Milwaukee had to give up some pieces, including Jrue Holiday, who ended up with their rivals from Boston.

There is no doubt that Bucks fans wanted the Lillard trade to happen.

Whether it was the right move for Milwaukee and their championship dreams will be fun to watch play out.

Denver Nuggets +550 To Win NBA Championship

The Denver Nuggets had the best record in the NBA’s Western Conference during the regular season last year.

But when the playoffs rolled around, they were only the third-ranked team in the West, according to their championship odds.

Whether the Nuggets used that as motivation is unknown.

What we do know is that once the NBA playoffs tipped off, Denver was on a championship mission.

That mission ended with Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and the rest of the Nuggets hosting the Larry O’Brien trophy for the first time in franchise history.

Denver is once again the betting favorite to come out of the Western Conference. Playing at altitude in Denver is always an advantage.

Last year, the champs were an impressive 34-7 on home court and were actually below .500 on the road.

Jokic lost last year’s MVP award to Joel Embiid of the 76ers. However, the two-time MVP is still one of the game’s most all-around dangerous players, and with him and Murray healthy, Denver will win a lot of games.

Phoenix Suns +650 To Win NBA Championship

Kevin Durant has landed with the Phoenix Suns and now has Devin Booker and Bradley Beal as his teammates.

The NBA hasn’t seen three players on a team with the chance to be this dominant since….

Well, since Durant was a part of the debacle in Brooklyn.

In Booker and Beal, Durant has set himself up with a couple of teammates who can fill the basket almost as well as he can.

There is no doubt that if the Suns trio remains healthy, then Phoenix is going to score a lot of points.

If there were concerns in the land of the Suns, it’s that they don’t (yet?) have the depth to feel comfortable competing with the best teams in the West when Booker, Beal, and KD aren’t all on the court together.

Phoenix has 80+ regular season games to work on acquiring or developing some depth. If they can do that in the regular season, come playoff time, they should be among the league’s most feared teams to play.

LeBron James +1200 To Win NBA Championship

LeBron James was the first overall pick of the 2003 draft.

Since then, LBJ has played 11 seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

King James has also played four seasons with the Miami Heat and has completed five seasons with his current team, the Los Angeles Lakers.

During his Hall of Fame career, LeBron has won four championships, played in ten NBA Finals, and once made eight consecutive finals appearances between 2011 and 2018.

I say this because when we look at the +1200 for the Lakers to win the championship, let’s remember that LeBron is heading into his 21st professional season and is still the best player on his team.

Whether you are an MJ fan, an LBJ fan, or believe that someone else was the NBA G.O.A.T., let’s make sure we all stop and acknowledge just how great a career LeBron James has had to date.

What Are NBA Vegas Odds?

When bettors and sports fans are searching for NBA Vegas Odds, more than likely, it’s an old-school phrase they are using, and the information that person is looking for is just the most up-to-date NBA betting odds for the games that day.

The term Vegas Odds is still used today, but with the legalization of sports betting across North America, Las Vegas is no longer the only state where we can bet basketball games.

As legalization continues to expand, we will hear the term Vegas Odds less frequently.

However, as long as there are Gen X’s out there in sports betting, we will still hear the occasional request for the latest NBA Vegas Odds.

When Do Sportsbooks Set NBA Odds?

The NBA season is a long-term physical grind, with teams playing an average of more than 3-games per week for six months at a time.

Then, the playoffs kick in, and half the league gets to keep playing at an even more frequent pace.

When you factor in the travel demands and the maintenance required to keep their bodies in condition to compete at the highest level, an NBA season is quite demanding on players.

With over 1,200 total games to set odds for, the NBA season is also a grind for sportsbooks!

As bettors, we can expect to wake up on the day of a game and have the ability to check the odds for all games being played later that day.

However, because of injuries from teams playing back-to-back games, it’s often not possible for a sportsbook to set odds much earlier than the day of.

It never hurts to start checking in with your sportsbook a full day before a game to see if they have odds posted.

If neither team has a game the day before, and both teams are relatively injury-free – then sometimes sportsbooks have the ability to set odds earlier for some games.

How Are NBA Vegas Odds Determined?

Sportsbooks, bookies, and those willing to set odds and take a bet have been around for hundreds of years.

Part of their success revolves around not giving away all of their secrets.

The reality is that today, odds-making has become far more technical and complicated than back in the day because we have access to so much more information and data.

Sportsbooks hire highly educated teams of people to set odds.

More often than not, these people have an advanced understanding of math and enjoy playing with large data sets.

From there, each oddsmaker has their own formula for which data and information should be used to calculate the final odds.

As a bettor, one of the best exercises you can do to help improve your results is to try and set lines for games, creating your own odds-making formula.

By continuing to improve your odds-making ability, you get an understanding of how a sportsbook operates.

The more you know about your competition, the better bettor you will be!

How To Read NBA Odds

NBA betting traditionalists grew up with moneylines, point spreads, and totals betting as our primary options if we wanted to get down an NBA bet.

However, since the legalization of sports betting in North America, there has been a technology boom in the industry that has allowed sportsbooks to create many new types of basketball betting products enjoyed in the market today.

As recreational sports bettors, we need to become intimately familiar with the moneylines associated with each bet and exactly what they mean.

We might believe the Toronto Raptors have a good chance of beating a tired Milwaukee team at home.

But at what odds do we like them?

Would we bet Toronto at +100 at home? -110 at home? -130 at home?

Understanding moneylines and understanding that each moneyline is a representation of the odds or chances of something occurring is key.

We all feel comfortable betting favorites – but we must be very conscious of the price we are betting them at.

NBA Moneyline Betting Example

• Los Angeles Lakers +120
• Boston Celtics -150

In our NBA moneyline example above, the +120 odds beside the LA Lakers represent the underdog odds.

We know this because any moneyline with a plus (+) sign represents the underdog moneyline.

Moneyline betting is the most straightforward of them all.

There is no point spread involved in this bet. You only need the team you wagered on to win the game in order to win your bet.

When calculating the Lakers +120 odds, what that means to us as bettors is that if anyone wishes to wager $100 on LA to win, they would receive $120 in profit.

In this case, with the Lakers as the betting underdogs, we win more than what we wagered.

If we wanted to bet on the -150 Boston Celtics, the minus (-) odds tell us that to win $100 in profit, we would have to risk $150.

When you are betting on the favorite, you will have to risk more money than what you win in return.

NBA Point Spread Betting Example

• Los Angeles Lakers +2.5 | -105
• Boston Celtics -2.5 | -115

A point spread is something that sportsbooks use to “equal out” a game from a betting perspective.

In our example above, the Celtics are considered a better team than the Lakers, and Boston is playing at home.

Sportsbooks have determined that a 2.5-point spread is the right number for this game.

This means the Lakers, as the underdog (+2.5), start the game with a 2.5 lead. (for betting purposes only.)

If the final score is Boston 102 – LA 100 – then the Lakers are deemed to have covered the 2.5 spread.

Conversely, if you want to wager on the favorite Boston Celtics, Boston would have to win the game by at least 3 points to cover the 2.5 spread.

It is important to remember that even with point-spread betting, there are still moneylines involved, and a bettor has to be aware of both the spread and ML for these bets.

NBA Totals Betting Example

• Los Angeles Lakers vs Boston Celtics – O/U +204.5 – Over -110 | Under -110

Totals betting is fun because you don’t have to cheer for one specific team to win or one team to lose.

Instead, we are concerned only about the combined points both teams will score when we are betting on an NBA Total. (also called Over/Under betting.)

In our example above, the sportsbook has set the total for this game at 204.5 points. If both teams combine to score 205 points or more, then the OVER will be the winning bet.

Of course, if the teams play a defensive battle, and the combined score is 204 points or less, then the UNDER is the winning bet.

As always, there is a moneyline associated with Totals betting.

Often, the ML is the same for both sides, but that is not always the case. Be sure to double-check the ML before placing your Over/Under bets.

Always Shop Around

Whether you are the most experienced sharp bettor around or a recreational bettor just adding a little excitement to a game, the single greatest edge any of us have against the sportsbooks is our ability to shop around for the Best Odds available.

Whether we are point spread betting, totals betting, or playing a game straight up on the moneyline, there is always an advantage to shopping for your Best Odds.

We might find one sportsbook offering us the favorite at -2.5 points and -115 on the moneyline.

Another sportsbook might offer us that same -2.5 spread, but their ML might be -105 instead of -115.

The difference between -115 and -105 is significant when it comes to our long-term ROI.

By Shopping Around and betting only the odds that work best for our bets, we have the ability to increase our long-term ROI by upwards of 20%.

For one specific wager, shopping around might not have a huge impact.

But over time, the ability to play only the Best Odds could be the difference between being profitable or not.

How To Place Bets Using Vegas Odds

Actually, it is quite simple step-by-step. Of course, to play with Vegas odds, you must be in Sin City.

1. Determine which bet you’re playing. It can be a straight bet, a parlay/teaser, a total, or any of the many types of wagers available.

2. Find the sport you want to put your money on. Then, go to the game(s) you’re aiming to bet at the Vegas betting board.

3. Choose the betting criteria you want your bet to be submitted. Whether it’s a point spread, a moneyline, over/unders, or many other markets.

4. Select how much money you’re willing to lay on the line.

5. Wait for your turn, and approach the bookmaker when appropriate.

6. Tell him the rotation number, the betting type, the criteria you want to bet on, and the amount of money wagered. Enjoy, and hope for the best.

As advised, be very specific.

Otherwise, the Vegas sportsbook will immediately lean to a spread as a default.