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How to Bet On the Spanish Liga ACB

The Spanish Liga ACB, also known as Liga Endesa, is the main professional basketball league in Spain and many consider it the second most important national league, only surpassed by the NBA. The roots of the current ACB go back to the Spanish Basketball League, which was founded in 1957. THe current league came about due to a change in who controlled the league, it went from the Spanish Basketball Federation to the ACB.

The ACB league consists of 18 teams that that each play each other twice in the first part of the season, once at home and once away. At the end of the regular season, the eight best teams compete in the playoffs, in which they are paired 1st with 8th, 2nd with 7th, etc. and play in a best of three games format. The last two remaining teams then compete in the LEB Oro.

The current teams are Barça, Bàsquet Girona, Baxi Manresa, Carplus Fuenlabrada, Casademont Zaragoza, Cazoo Baskonia, Coosur Real Betis, Covirán Granada, Gran Canaria, Joventut, Lenovo Tenerife, Monbus Obradoiro, Real Madrid, Río Breogán, Surne Bilbao Basket, UCAM Murcia, Unicaj, and Valencia Basket.

How to Bet on the Spanish Liga ACB

There are so many options to bet on that beginners don't know where to choose. Therefore, we will explain some of the most popular bets that you can place on the Spanish basketball league.

Outright Bets

Outright bets are usually bets on who you think will be the winner of the league. They are long-term bets since the winner isn't known until the competition is over. They are usually made before the start of a season but they can be placed at almost any time during the season.

For example, you could bet on Manresa to win the league this year. If you bet before the season starts, you will receive odds that are likely quite long. However, if you make the bet when the team has already won its first two games, then the odds will likely be far shorter.

Match Results

Bets

Match results are bets that are made by choosing the winner of the match. These bets are the most common as they are simple and resolved very quickly. In basketball, there is no draw, so you can only pick a winner. For example, if Barça and Real Madrid play, you bet on which team you think will win. If you bet on Barcelona and they win, you take the money. If Real Madrid wins you lose the bet.

Game Handicap Bets

Game Handicap is giving a team a points handicap (8.5, 9...) for betting purposes. These bets are created to give more interest to matches with a large level difference between teams. For example, if Real Madrid, the current champion, faces Covirán Granada, a newly promoted team, it is far to assume that Real Madrid will enjoy a comfortable victory. For that reason, you can make a bet on Real Madrid -10.5. This means that in our bet, Real Madrid starts losing by 10.5 points, so the only way for us to win the bet is for Madrid to win with a difference of 11 points or more.

The difference between putting -10.5 points against or -11 is whether we count the tie as null or not. That is, if we put a handicap of -10.5 points, and Madrid scored 11 points, you would win the bet, but if the handicap were -11 points, the bet would count as a draw and the money bet would be returned.

Game Winning Margin

Game Winning Margin refers to bets where the difference in points between the winning team and the losing team is bet upon. Some of these bets only require you to pick the points difference, and in others, you can also indicate which team will be the winner. For example, in a Madrid vs Barça match, you can bet that the point difference will be between 5 and 8 points. If the final score was finally 80-74, Madrid would have won by 6 points and the bet would be successful.

Half-Time/Full-Time

In this bet, you bet on the result in the first half of the game and in the second half of the game, as if they were two different games. You can bet on only one half, or try to predict who will be ahead at the break and at the end of the game.

Total Points Bet

This is a bet that requires you to predict the total number of points scored by both teams during the match. You are given a betting line and need to bet whether the total points will be over or under this number, for example, 156.5. If, for example, a match between Unicaja and Basquet Girona ends 80-75 and we bet the total number of points is above 156.5, we lose the bet because the total number of points was 155.

Player & Game Props

Player & Game Props are bets that relate to player or game statistics. For example, you can bet on the number of free throws, how many fouls there will be, how many 3-pointers there will be, or how many points a specific player will make. These bets require a broader knowledge of the teams or players, since they are more specific bets and therefore more difficult to hit.

Live Bets

Live Bets are bets that you can place after a game has started. Many of the bets explained above can be made live, but keep in mind that once the game has started, the odds will change to reflect the situation on the basketball court. Live bets will also allow you to bet on the next thing to happen, such as the next team to score.