How To Bet On Basketball In Canada

Basketball popularity here in Canada has grown in recent years.  The Raptors won the NBA Finals in 2019 and continue to put a competitive team on the floor every year.  Canada Basketball is also in great hands internationally with some solid, young NBA stars such as RJ Barrett, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Andrew Wiggins and Jamal Murray comprising a solid core for international competitions.  The future is bright for Canadian basketball.

On this page I will provide you with all of the information necessary to start placing basketball bets online.  I’ve started off by outlining the best betting sites for Canadians, and followed that up by breaking down the most popular types of basketball bets offered at these sites.  At the bottom of the page I’ve included a 3 step guide that you can follow to place your first online basketball bet within minutes.

Where To Bet On Basketball From Canada

Sportsbook Rating Offers Review Visit
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These are the three betting sites with significant presence here in Canada.  Each of the sites are reputable, respected, trustworthy and focused on growing their Canadian player base.

Check out any of the reviews above for a full breakdown of the betting site including their offers, betting options, banking options, customer service and more.

Different Basketball Betting Options

There are three main bets that get the vast majority of handle in a basketball game.  The point spread, money line and over/under bets.  I will break each of these down in detail below and provide examples.

Point Spread

The point spread bets generally get the most action on an NBA basketball game.  In a point spread game the oddsmakers set a spread and the favoured team must win by more than the spread, while the underdog must either win the game outright or lose by fewer points than the spread.  Let’s look at an example:

This example has the Bulls heading to Charlotte to face the Hornets.  In this game the Bulls are 6 point favourites, as you can see under the ‘PointSpread’ header at SIA.  The -6 indicates that the Bulls must win the game by 7 or more points to cover the spread.  For a Hornets spread bet to win they must win the game outright or lose by 5 or fewer points. If the Bulls win by exactly 6 points the spread bets would push (be returned).

Both sides of the spread have equal odds of 1.91, which means a $100 bet would win $91.  The odds can vary, but you will usually see 1.91 (aka -110 in American odds) for basketball spreads.  Check out our sports betting odds page if you don’t understand how to read the odds.

Money Line

With a money line bet you are wagering on which team will win the game straight up.  The oddsmakers set the odds based on each teams perceived chances of winning the game.

Continuing with the Bulls vs Hornets example, you can see that the Bulls are expected to win the game.  The Bulls odds of 1.44 to win the game indicate that you would only win $44 on a $100 bet.  On the flip side, the Hornets are underdogs with a $100 bet on the Hornets paying out $287 if they pull off the upset.

Over/Under

The third main bet offering on a basketball game is the over/under (aka the total).  The oddsmaker will set a total number of points to be scored in the game (by both teams combined) and you can wager on whether there will be more or fewer points scored.

In the Bull vs Hornets game the over/under is set at 234.5 points.  If 235 or more points are scored in the game then the over bet would be a winner, while if 234 or fewer points are scored the under would be the winner.

How To Place Your First Basketball Bet

Follow this simple 3 step guide to place your first online basketball bet within 5 minutes.

Step #1. Open an Online Betting Account

Our top rated betting site for Canadians is SportsInteraction.com, so I will be using them as the sign up example for the remainder of the guide, but you can read the reviews of each of the 3 sportsbooks we recommended above and select the site you like the best.

I’ve used Sports Interaction for the example screenshots above.

Click here to visit SportsInteraction.com.  Then select ‘Open Account’ on the landing page and fill in the short registration form to create your account.

Step #2. Deposit

Next you will need to deposit to fund your account.  Sports Interaction accepts, Visa, MasterCard, Interac, iDebit, MuchBetter and paysafecard deposits.  So you should no trouble getting your money into or out of your Sports Interaction account.

Step #3. Place Your Basketball Bets

Alright, now comes the fun part.  Actually placing your basketball bets.

Once at the Sports Interaction website, select ‘Basketball’ from the left sidebar and then select the league you want to bet on.  In the screenshot below I’ve selected ‘NBA’ which you can see has brought up the games available for betting in the NBA that evening.

If you look at the right side of the screenshot you can see the ‘Bet Card’.  After you’ve made your betting selection it will move to the bet card where you will enter your bet amount and confirm the wager.  In the screenshot above I’ve select the Pistons +7.5 spread bet with odds of 1.91.  You can see my bet amount of $100 and Bet Payout of $190.91.  To confirm that wager I would just need to click the ‘Place Bet’ button, which is just outside of the screenshot.

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