With basketball being one of the more popular betting sports globally, it is no surprise that sportsbooks in Michigan prioritise this product. In the United States, March Madness can make or break a sportsbooks financial year. Every one of the best basketball betting sites listed here is licensed, legal and approved to offer basketball odds and lines by the Michigan Gaming Control Board.
Let us guide you through what makes a top basketball betting site tick, and walk you through the various features you should be looking out for when you start to bet on basketball.
The Best Basketball Betting Sites in Michigan for 2024
1BetMGM Sportsbook
First Bet Offer - Up to $1,500 back in Bonus Bets
Place your first qualifying bet and get up to $1,500 back in Bonus Bets if your first bet loses.
2BetRivers Sportsbook
Second chance bet of up to $500
If your first bet loses, you will get 100% of the money back as a bonus bet, up to $500
3Caesars Sportsbook
First Bet Offer - Up to $1,000 back in Bonus Bets
Place your first qualifying cash bet and if it loses, you’ll get it back as a Bonus Bet – up to $1,000
To make it onto our site, and to be considered one of the best basketball betting sites on our ranking tables, at a minimum, the sportsbook needs to offer:
- NBA & College Basketball Betting Options
- Multiple State approved deposit and withdrawal methods
- In-Play Basketball Betting
- Secure technology
- Web and App basketball Products
What Do the Best Basketball Betting Sites Offer?
We have already detailed some of the key criteria for gaining a place on best betting Michigan. However, to distinguish which is top of the pile, we believe that you need to look deeper into their basketball betting product. Here are some key features that we think are important:
- Depth of basketball betting options: NBA, NCAA, EuroLeague
- Live betting on basketball (betting in-play)
- Real time stats and data
- Basketball player props
- Same Game Parlays
- Free to Play basketball games
- Basketball promotions
- Pistons & Wolverines specific betting markets and offers
See below for some more detail around key betting features.
Basketball Betting Cash out
This feature is a great one on offer from the best basketball betting sites. Cashing out your basketball bet might be done for two reasons; ensure you settle with a profit or limit your losses.
When a cash out option is available, you will effectively be offered an amount to settle the bet early. The algorithm behind the cash out value will vary between betting sites but will move up and down often up to the final seconds of the game. The cash out amount is always going to be lower than the true value of that bet at that given point - At an aggregated level, betting sites like people taking cash out.
As an example of why you may cash out early to guarantee a profit. You have placed a $50 moneyline wager on the Pistons at +180 to beat the Hawks (5pt Favourites). Deep into the 4th quarter, Detroit are up but under a lot of pressure from Atlanta. At this point the Sportsbook may offer you a cash out settlement of $90. That is a guaranteed profit of $40 however, if the Pistons hold the Hawks off, you have missed out on $50 profit. If the Pistons had folded, you would have lost the $50 stake making you $90 better off.
Basketball Live Streaming
Following the action live always enhances the betting experience. Where the broadcast rights permit, sportsbooks are able to embed vision into the website and app. This allows users to follow the game with quick access to the in-play betting odds. This is essential to take advantage of any value opportunities you may have identified before the book can catch up.
Bespoke Basketball Betting Bonuses
The better sportsbooks will offer their users regular basketball promotions and bonuses. Weekly offers on the NBA or College games can vary significantly between the various books but broadly speaking, they fall into one of these categories:
- Odds Boost:
- Parlay Insurance: Place a 4+ leg parlay on College Basketball and if you land all but one of those legs, get a free bet up to $25.
- Risk Free Bet: Place a Points & Assists Player Prop bet on any NBA game this week and if your bet settles as a loser, get a free bet up to $25.
The potential variations on each of these basketball promotions could be endless although generally they would fall into a similar category. Critically the terms and conditions by promotion and sportsbook will vary. Ensure you read them!
Basketball Betting Competitions - What Can I Bet On?
Name a basketball tournament and there is a good chance that you can bet on it. From ALBA Berlin in the German Bundesliga to the Quingdao Eagles of the Chinese Basketball Association. The top Basketball betting sites in Michigan will offer odds on pretty much everything. While that is all well and good, we take a look at some of the biggest basketball betting competitions by handle.
Betting on the NBA in Michigan
Whether you root for the Pistons or not, betting on the NBA is not a problem in Michigan. All of the MGCB regulated sportsbooks offer real depth in their NBA betting options. Typically navigation to the NBA markets is separated from the basketball category given its importance. All of our listed sites offer NBA Futures markets as well as game and player proposition bets.
While live streaming is not typically found on NBA betting sites, they do offer some seriously good in-game visuals and live NBA odds while in-play. See below for our top three places to bet on the NBA in Michigan:
- 1
BetRivers Sportsbook
Second chance bet of up to $500
If your first bet loses, you will get 100% of the money back as a bonus bet, up to $500
- 2
BetMGM Sportsbook
First Bet Offer - Up to $1,500 back in Bonus Bets
Place your first qualifying bet and get up to $1,500 back in Bonus Bets if your first bet loses.
- 3
Caesars Sportsbook
First Bet Offer - Up to $1,000 back in Bonus Bets
Place your first qualifying cash bet and if it loses, you’ll get it back as a Bonus Bet – up to $1,000
Betting on College Basketball
The nation's love of March Madness has been reflected by betting handles taken on the tournament. Outside of the season's finale, you are able to get college basketball odds and lines from games in each NCAA conference including the Big Ten, Horizon and Mid-American.
To ensure integrity of the competition and protect students, player prop bets are not possible at this level. However, if you fancy the Chippewas to beat the spread, or the Wolverines to to race clear in the first quarter, the leading betting sites will happily accept your wager. Betting with books regulated to take bets on college basketball within the State of Michigan is absolutely critical though.
Betting on EuroLeague Basketball
The most prestigious Basketball tournament in Europe sees the top teams from the various domestic leagues compete and much like the NBA and College ball, you can bet on the EuroLeague Basketball too.
Teams come from multiple countries with heavyweights such as FC Barcelona, Real Madrid and FC Bayern Munich from Spain and Germany respectively and affiliated with their respective soccer clubs.
The action is high quality and offers up plenty of wagering opportunities, with sportsbooks like BetMGM offering over 20 markets on a standard game, including the obvious basketball money lines, and some super interesting basketball prop bets.
The Most Popular Basketball Betting Markets
Betting markets have evolved over the years and basketball fans now have a huge range to choose from.
Normally built out into sections of different bet types - you may get to choose from bets such as main bets, player bets, team bets, halves/quarters, or even the newer one game parlay where you can put a number of wagers together to make one ultimate - and better priced - wager.
Markets have developed to keep you interested throughout the game too, giving you options to bet on different time intervals, or wagering on the race to different points targets.
Money Line
Probably the simplest of wagers, the basketball money line gives you 2 options to wager on - ultimately who will win, team A or team B. The sportsbook establishes the price for both teams and you get to judge whether the value offered is attractive or not. Often you can bet this line over the full game, the half or the quarter.
Spread
Betting on the spread during basketball gives you a way to enhance or decrease the odds on a team you may want to bet on. The sportsbook sets a spread of points that they believe one team may win by and one may lose by. For example, they may make the Grizzlies a 7pt winner over the Magic, so this line of -6.5pts could be offered at a price of -105.
You could bet that price, or you can choose from a wider spread of points, say -15.5pts if you think the Grizzlies will run away with it and this would be priced at a much higher rate, giving you more value, but with more risk.
Total Points
The basketball total points market simply asks you to wager on what the total points of both teams playing will be. This is usually offered in an over/under style.
For example, a sportsbook may set the total points line at 231.5, meaning that if you bet under, you are wagering that both teams will score a combined 231pts or fewer, whilst if you bet the overs, you are wagering that they’ll score a combined 231pts or more.
Often there is a range of total points lines, allowing you to add bigger value into your wager should you believe that it’ll be a particularly low or high scoring game.
Parlay Basketball Betting - Maximize Your Potential Winnings
At Best Betting Michigan, we love basketball Parlays thanks to the way they can add big value into your bets. If you know your basketball, then you’ll feel more confident adding more selections into your parlay to try to take down the bigger value bet.
If you also enjoy football betting, or you've got a big interest in soccer betting for example, you could also tie in your love for basketball with a parlay on multiple sports events.
In 2022 the Same Game Parlay was born - allowing sports bettors to bet on multiple selections within one game - so you may bet the money line, the spread and add a team or player prop bet in there too in order to maximize the entertainment.
Live Betting on Basketball in Michigan
Wagering on Basketball before the game has tipped off has always been the norm, but as betting markets develop the rise of in-play basketball betting is evident.
Being able to get action throughout the game really adds to the entertainment experience and gives you plenty more options to enjoy a wager on the NBA, and generally the markets are as plentiful as those pre-match - with the odds changing in real-time to reflect how the teams and players are performing.
Conclusion
To sum up, Michigan is a privileged state because it has so many strong sportsbooks who offer great options for betting on basketball. Great promos and bonuses, a large array of leagues and competitions, a wide varioty of markets, and some cutting edge product features are really what makes the best basketball betting sites stand out.
Enjoy your basketball betting as a form of entertainment at any one of our trusted partners, and we're sure you won't be disappointed.
FAQs
Realistically the best basketball betting site is one that delivers what you want as an individual, however in our quest to provide Michigan players with the most robust data and help inform their decisions, we believe the best place to bet on basketball in Michigan is BetMGM. This is down to a combination of offering a fantastic welcome bonus, a great user experience, a trusted platform and payment options, whilst offering plenty of basketball markets and wagers.
When we look at the best betting sites for NBA wagering, we look at the overall product offering around the NBA - what data and visualization coverage do they offer, how many markets are available to wager on, are their promotions catered to the NBA and is it a clear priority for the sportsbook. With all of this in mind we believe that the best NBA betting site is BetMGM.
Yes, in December 2019, the bill to legalize betting on all sports was passed. The land based sportsbooks registered their first basketball handle in March 2020. Online and mobile basketball bets were not possible until the regulator (Michigan Gaming Control Board) finalized the framework in which these operators work. In January 2021, six online basketball betting sites went live. You need to be 21 and be physically within Michigan to place a basketball bet
Yes. The online sportsbooks make it super simple to place a basketball parlay bet. When you know the various legs that you want to include, simply select the odds. The site will include these into the online betslip where you enter your stake and place the bet. Usually there are multiple fields for placing them as straight bets or as a parlay
Yes. It is possible to bet on all college basketball events within Michigan. Unlike some other States, Michigan based college teams are not restricted. With enhanced products and data stream, betting options on college basketball games almost match those for the NBA.