Nobody can really debate the fact that bettors love great welcome offers and promotions offered by online sportsbooks. And with a huge portion of the betting public interested in betting on the NBA postseason, the desire for bonuses and promos gets even bigger.
The National Basketball Association is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world, let alone the United States. So it comes as no surprise that as legalized gambling has spread across the country in recent years, online NBA betting has enjoyed massive success as a fan favorite.
Throughout the course of the season, betting sites offer bonuses and promotions centered around the NBA along with a nearly innumerable amount of betting markets each and every night. This helps spark a massive amount of interest among bettors and maintains the public’s interest in wagering on the sport.
But do you know when the desire to bet on the NBA reaches its peak? When the postseason arrives. The NBA playoffs are undoubtedly one of the busiest times of the year for betting sites, as casual and die-hard fans alike are rushing to their phones to log into their accounts and wager on basketball.
Sportsbooks respond by offering more bonuses, promotions, and betting markets than at any point throughout the regular season. Here, we are detailing the different signup offers and promotions that bettors can expect to see around the playoff time of the NBA season.
There are several factors that all bettors need to consider before choosing online sportsbooks in New Jersey or any of the ever-growing number of states that offer legal sports betting.
You should be looking for a site with a generous welcome offer, plenty of betting markets, many different promotions, advantageous odds compared to its competitors, and strong customer service, among other things.
Figuring out which operator offers everything you’re looking for can take a bit of time but luckily, we’ve done the research for you. If you’re looking to bet on the NBA postseason, consider the following sites:
If you aren’t in a state with legal online sports betting, you can place legal sports picks at FendOff Sports. Read our FendOff Sports review for more information and get our exclusive welcome bonus below:
The starting point for any new player first signing up for a sportsbook is the welcome bonus. The good news is that claiming one is quite easy and once you complete your registration with the sportsbook of your choice, you are automatically activating the bonus offer for that site.
That means all you need to do is find the signup page in one of the following ways:
Once the process is completed, your bonus will be activated. If receiving a no deposit bonus, it will immediately show up in your account. Deposit matches will appear following your initial deposit and if the site you sign up for offers a bonus bet, those come into play after placing the first wager. Now, let’s get into the specifics of each type of bonus.
Whenever you create a new account, you are eligible to claim welcome bonuses offered by the sportsbook. Signup bonuses work as incentives to attract new players, and these generous offers help bettors get ahead from the very start of their journey with the site.
There are few things that bettors enjoy more than a good welcome bonus, as they are a great way to potentially earn profits without spending any of your own money. No matter which type you claim, all are generous and can go a long way toward enhancing the customer experience on the site.
These bonuses involve awarding the new player with site credit whether it’s for creating an account, making a deposit, or refunding a lost wager. It all depends on the exact bonus, which can vary depending on the sportsbook.
NBA betting bonuses are available year-round but when the playoffs arrive, some sportsbooks sweeten the pot and start giving away more than they do when there isn’t so much action on the sports calendar approaching.
Generally, there are three different types of NBA playoff betting bonuses including no deposit bonuses, deposit matches, and bonus bets. Below, we will go into further detail about all three before explaining how best to use your newfound site credit.
A no deposit bonus is a welcome offer that doesn’t require the bettor to invest anything in order to claim a reward. All you have to do is create a new account and the bonus will be added to the balance.
This bonus is essentially free money since you’re being offered the chance to earn profits without having to even deposit any personal funds. The no deposit bonus is generally for $50 or less and is awarded in site credit. Regardless of the amount, no deposit bonuses are free money to wager with.
First deposit bonuses, also known as deposit matches, are debatably the best bonus out there because this is how the player gets the most funds possible to bet with. A deposit match involves the sportsbook matching the player’s initial investment a percentage of the way up to a certain amount.
Some sportsbooks only match a small percentage but many sites with this offer will match the entire way. For example, a common offer would be a 100 percent match up to $500. This means that if you deposit $500 or less, the site will match that amount in the form of site credit.
These bonuses can be used on a wide range of NBA betting markets. Even though site credit isn’t returned to the account when wagered, deposit match bonuses offer plenty of chances to earn profit while spending the sportsbook’s funds and not your own.
If the site you’re signing up for doesn’t offer one of the above options, chances are you are receiving a bonus bet as your welcome bonus. This involves the sportsbook minimizing the risk of the new player and offering a refund in site credit up to a certain amount if the very first bet they place winds up in a loss.
The way it works is simple. Once your account is set up and you’ve made a deposit, your bonus bet offer is activated for your initial wager. Once that first bet is placed, it is eligible for a refund in site credit if it loses.
The amount of a bonus bet depends on the sportsbook but many of these offers are in the $500 to $1,000 range.
Those who are new to sportsbooks and interested in betting on NBA games often wonder what they can use their newfound bonus money on. The short answer? Everything.
Regardless of the type of welcome offer you receive, there is a huge range of NBA betting markets to choose from, with nearly all of them being eligible for use with site credit that is claimed from these bonuses. The choices include but are not limited to:
Between conventional markets such as moneylines, spreads, and totals, along with all the prop choices, there are literally hundreds of individual betting options for every single postseason game.
If you’re receiving a no deposit bonus or a deposit match offer, we’d recommend using your bonus on parlays, as this is one way to potentially get the most for your site credit.
Wagers placed with site credit are not returned to the sportsbook account if you win, meaning only the profits will be reflected in the account balance. Knowing you aren’t getting the site credit back no matter what, maximizing the potential payout you can receive with it is something we’d advise. Parlays do exactly that.
When betting parlays, a small wager could earn a large payout. And since the bonus funds aren’t your hard-earned money, it is worth the risk to take a shot at some longer odds and more profits. With a deposit bonus, you may have hundreds of dollars in site credit. This means you can divide your bonus into various wager types including multiple parlays.
If you don’t want to bet on multiple games at once, there are also high-paying team, game, and player props to choose from as well.
While signup offers are always amazing to receive, they aren’t the only bonus that can be received by belonging to an online sportsbook. Even existing customers are treated to benefits such as NBA playoff betting promotions that are offered throughout the postseason in a variety of ways.
Promotions during the NBA playoffs will vary depending on the site but you can be sure that with a little digging, you can find something you want to take advantage of. Bonus Bets, profit boosts, and parlay insurance are among the many options you will find at online sportsbooks across the United States.
Below, we go site by site to offer examples of what you may come across, and we will continue to add promotions as they become available.
BetMGM NBA Playoff Promotions
At BetMGM, bettors are being rewarded for all their bets, even their losses! Every week of the NBA playoffs, you can get 10 percent cashback on your net losses, up to $100 per week. Offer is only eligible for single bets and each week is defined as games completed from Monday through the following Sunday.
PointsBet NBA Playoff Promotions
PointsBet doesn’t make you wait until the game is over to find out whether you’re a winner. With this promotion, if you place a moneyline bet and your team leads at the end of three quarters, the wager is paid out instantly!
The promo is eligible for the first $100 staked so if your bet is worth more than that, your team will need to hold on for the remainder of the game for you to get paid.
Professional basketball isn’t exactly the easiest thing to handicap, especially once the postseason arrives and most of the remaining teams are of pretty high quality.
For that reason, it helps to have some form of the plan going in. For a more comprehensive look, you can visit our NBA betting strategy page. But for a few things to keep in mind when wagering on the playoffs, check out the following tips:
The schedule may be less packed during the playoffs compared to the regular season, but there are still multiple games per day and plenty of different betting options. Don’t feel the need to bet on every single game and even if you’re focused on one game, you don’t need to wager on various parts of it.
Be selective with your wagers, perhaps even more so than in the regular season. Rather than spreading yourself thin with too many bets, take the time to focus in on just a couple of wagers and bet confidently on those. It may seem fun to have action on a bunch of different things in the playoffs, but it will also be tougher to secure a profit.
A reverse line movement is a great tool that bettors can use to determine which side to wager on because it helps separate the public from the more respected bettors, also known as sharps. Reverse line movement takes place when the public is heavily on one side of a given line, but the odds move in the opposite direction.
For example, if the public is betting on the Lakers -2.5, that line could move to -3 or eventually even -3.5. But if the line moves the opposite way to Lakers -2 or Lakers -1.5 despite that public support, that could be evidence that sharp bettors are wagering on the opposite side.
Following reverse line movement isn’t a strategy that is guaranteed to work but it can be valuable to know how a given line has altered, especially in the postseason when each game sees much more attention from oddsmakers, sharps, and the public compared to the regular season.
We aren’t going to tell you to fade the public every time and we also won’t say to completely ignore the public. It’s actually important to know which side the majority is on because that combined with the line movement can help clear up where the value lies. What we will say is: don’t blindly follow the public.
There are inevitably going to be times, especially in the postseason, when games are tough to call and you’re undecided about which side to play. The easy thing to do in that case is to look toward the majority and bet with the public. While it can work in a one-off situation, this is a losing strategy overall.
At the same time, we wouldn’t recommend blindly fading the public either. There are plenty of occasions where the public winds up being right, even if the support of the masses winds up inflating a side or a total in the process.
Find a couple of data points to focus on and make the decision for yourself, rather than letting the public make it for you one way or another. Whether you wind up with or against the masses, at least you got there on your own.