Is There A Best Time Of Day To Bet First Baskets?
Late Alert Gold
We mentioned in our series on predicting first baskets that we’d look at how to time your first basket bets. There’s not a “perfect” strategy but here’s some strategies that sometimes seem to work:
Early lines are often softer
Player odds can be more favorable earlier in the day, before bettors have had a chance to jump in and pound the +EV lines. NBA and WNBA injury and practice reports are usually not available until later in the day, so there’s usually more uncertainty in the earlier odds as well. It is far more common for a player’s edge to start high and end lower, than the reverse, and the biggest hits we’ve had came from odds early in the day but not available later.
Lineup news moves odds right before tipoff
Odds can shift in very meaningful ways right before games tip off, usually due to final starting lineups being announced. This can result in very big edges for players who are typically non-starters. Pay attention to those late alerts!
Top off your bets when odds improve
Because odds shift through the day, it is definitely important to keep an eye out on alerts and update your wagers through the day if necessary This almost always means “add more to a bet you’ve wagered on” (there haven’t been any clear “cash this out” cases yet) because a player’s odds improved. We still recommend trying to get the early lines, but maximize your ROI by adding when odds improve.
The short version
So to summarize: get early lines if you can, top ’em off if odds improve, and pay close attention to alerts around tipoff. Good luck! And if you haven’t yet, why not subscribe?
How Do You Predict First Baskets? Why First Baskets? · Part 1: High Level Overview · Part 2: The Data We Use · Part 3: So Many Models · Part 4: From Predictions To Edges · Part 5: Alert Alert · When To Bet First Baskets