EARLY SEASON NBA OVER/UNDER BIAS

In this paper we analyze the total line betting market for National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season games for the 2009-2012 seasons. Specifically, we divide seasons by week and analyze points scored, total lines and game statistics such as field goal percentage and turnovers. We find the NBA total line market is generally very efficient with points scored and total lines increasing nearly evenly over the first 17 weeks of the season before leveling off. However, the total line market is inefficient in Week 1 with 58.2% of first week games having total scores less than total lines during our sample period. This win rate is significantly higher than the 52.38% win rate required for profiting from the betting strategy. Betting under total lines on all games in the first week on the 2009-2012 NBA season yields average returns of 11.1% per game.