The NBA season is officially underway and the team at The Action Network is excited to provide Sharp Reports all season long.
Basketball is predominantly a spread and over/under sport. This means bettors must win 52.38% of the time in order to break even (assuming standard -110 juice).
Anything above that means you're turning a profit.
When it comes to Friday, sharps are laser-focused on the biggest, most heavily bet game of the night: Golden State Warriors at Utah Jazz (10:30 p.m. ET on ESPN).
In fact, professional bettors have taken a side on both the spread and the over/under.
Betting Terms to Know
Steam Move: Sudden, drastic and uniform line movement across the market caused by an overload of sharp action from respected players.
Reverse Line Movement: When the betting line moves in the opposite direction of the betting percentages. It’s a top smart money indicator.
Line Freeze: When one side is getting heavy betting, but the line won’t budge, indicating sharp liability on the other side.
Juice: The tax or commission that bettors must pay sportsbooks in order for them to accept your wager. A -115 juice means a bettor would have to wager $115 to win $100.
Golden State Warriors at Utah Jazz
- Sharp angle: Jazz (+2.5) and Under (218 to 217.5)
- Tip-off: 10:30 p.m. ET
The Warriors are the Patriots of the NBA. It doesn't matter if they're home or away, nor the spread. Whenever the Dubs take the court, they're an automatic play for recreational bettors.
Friday night is a perfect example.
Golden State (1-0) opened as a 2.5-point favorite. Average Joes see a short spread that looks too good to be true. Of course they're hammering the Warriors.
Sharps smell a rat. Despite 78% of bets laying the points with Golden State, the line has remained virtually frozen at 2.5.
Normally, a team getting nearly 80% of the action will move from -2.5 to -3 or even -4 with oddsmakers adjusting the number to limit their exposure and entice action on the other side.
The fact that this didn't happen is a dead giveaway that sharp liability is on the Jazz (1-0).
As soon as the line opened, wiseguys at JustBet, ABC and Pinnacle got down hard on Jazz +2.5. Later in the day, the line briefly reached +3 and the pros at CRIS quickly pounced before it fell back down to +2.5.
In addition to the sharp action, the Jazz are also in a profitable contrarian spot. They're only getting 22% of spread bets in the most heavily bet game of the night.
Also, October is the best month of the year to bet on contrarian dogs. Since 2005, October underdogs getting fewer than 35% of spread bets are 76-51 (59.8%) against the spread for a profit of +21.94 units, according to Bet Labs.
Sharps are also hitting the under.
Despite 70% of bets going over, the total has fallen from 218 to 217.5. This reverse line movement was caused by Goodfellas at CRIS and ABC hammering the under, forcing bookmakers to drop the line despite heavy public over betting.
The under also matches a profitable Bet Labs PRO system: Under on Good Home Over Teams (58.9% ATS, +114.82 units, +14.8% return on investment since 2005).
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