Sports Picks Explained

With so many leagues and games played every day across the various sports in the United States, finding the best sports picks or sports betting picks can be valuable. This is especially true for free expert sports picks, which we provide here.

We can only speak for ourselves here at Ballislife, but our picks come from extensive research and analysis, and we take pride in offering sports betting picks to our readers.

While we cannot claim to be correct on all free expert sports picks, we do our best to provide our rationale for picking the way we are.

Below, we’ll look at sports picks through the lens of basketball picks, NBA picks, NCAA football picks, NCAA basketball picks, and more.

Basketball Picks & Predictions

NBA betting picks are so popular in the United States because it’s one of the more popular sports in the country, and there are 80+ games across the regular and postseason. With that, there are many opportunities to bet not only on your favorite team but many teams around the league.

In this section, we’ll take a look at the popular ways to bet on the sport.

NBA picks

When you hear the term “NBA picks,” there’s a lot that comes with that, as there are many ways to bet on the sport. When looking for NBA betting or basketball picks, you’ll want to focus on how you can wager and find which works best for you.

We’ll cover the following types below—NBA point spread picks, NBA total picks, NBA moneyline picks, and NBA prop picks.

NBA Point Spread Picks?

Betting on the NBA point spread or NBA picks against the spread, you’ll have to account for a number that demonstrates the gap in power between the two teams. With the point spread, online sportsbooks’ goals are to make the game as even as possible with the number in mind.

So, if you’re examining the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks game and see that the Celtics are -6.5, they need to not only win outright but win by at least seven points. Conversely, the Knicks would be +6.5 and can either win outright or, if they lose, lose by no more than six points.

Because this is designed to make the teams equal, the betting lines for both sides are at or around -110.

NBA Total Picks

The total, also known as the over/under, is wagering on the combined number of points scored in an NBA game.

Using the Celtics and Knicks example, let’s say the total is 202.5. You’ll be able to wager on whether or not the combined points go over or under that amount. The odds on these are also at or around -110.

If the final score is 100-90 and you bet the under, you’d win the bet.

NBA Moneyline Picks?

The moneyline is the most straightforward bet to make as you choose who you think will win the game.

However, where this bet can get tricky is that since there’s no point spread, the odds will reflect the strengths and weaknesses of each team.

So, if the Celtics were -6.5, they could be something like -240 on the moneyline, meaning you’d need to wager $240 to win $100.

NBA Prop Picks

Props are some more exciting ways to wager on your favorite teams if you’re unsure about the game's outcome. Props are like micro-events within games and come in three categories—game, team, and player.

• Game: Total Turnovers
• Team: Points in the first half
• Player: Total points, rebounds, assists, and more

These are usually wagered on like over/under bets, meaning you’ll pick whether the amount of whatever the prop is goes beyond or falls short of the line set by the platform.

NCAA Picks & Predictions

While some states have college sports betting restrictions, the vast majority allow you to compete, whether it’s making NCAA football picks or NCAA basketball picks.

This is a popular way to bet because we are looking at the stars of tomorrow in the professional leagues. We tend to see scoring in a way that we’re not used to in the professional leagues due to the number of teams in the college landscape and the wide-ranging gaps in talent and success.

Let’s look at sports picks through the college lens.

NCAA Consensus Picks

Whether it’s going into each season or toward the end of the season, you’ll start to see platforms and outlets give NCAA consensus picks for various awards, draft pick status, or championship success.

For example, popular college football picks have the Georgia Bulldogs winning the championship each season because of their recent strength. We used to see something similar with the Duke Blue Devils for college basketball.

Of course, these picks aren’t a sure thing, but they’re something to consider when wagering.

College Football picks

There are well over 100 teams in college football playing against one another each season. With that, there are massive gaps in the strength of their respective programs, making NCAA football picks somewhat unique. You could have a team like Georgia playing against a small state school somewhere in Alabama.

This makes college football picks interesting because you may find large point spreads—which we’ll cover shortly—that you won’t find in any other sport.

NCAAF Picks against the spread

As mentioned in the section above, some NCAAF picks against the spread can be wide-ranging. With so many teams in college football, you’re going to find games where you pretty much know who’s going to win the game, but the question is this—but by how much?

For example, if Ohio State plays a school like Colgate, you may see that Ohio State are -50.5, meaning they need to win by 51 points or more. This isn’t just a few points, but it shows how wide the gap is with talent in the sport.

NCAA Basketball? Picks

Where NCAA football picks differ from College basketball picks besides the sport is how their postseason is run. College football has a four-team playoff for the national championship and 40+ bowl games. In college basketball, the season ends with March Madness, also known as the NCAA Tournament, where 64 teams strive for the national title.

Thus, finding free college basketball picks during this time can be extremely helpful. You’ll come across teams you’ve never heard of before but could beat some higher-profile teams.

NCAAB picks against the spread

While NCAAB picks against the spread are quite as large as college football, you can still find some larger spreads here because there are so many teams in college basketball that are better than others.

For example, Pennsylvania is on the road taking on Hartford and is -16. It’s rare to find this in the pros. Still, it does show how much more powerful sportsbooks consider Pennsylvania, especially factoring in them being on the road. If Pennsylvania wins by 16, this will result in a push, meaning you’d get your wager back. For them to cover, they’d need to win by 17 points.

MLB Picks

We mentioned how long the NBA season is at 80+ games across the regular and postseason, but the MLB takes that to a new level. If you want free MLB picks, you’ll be able to find some across a regular season with 162 games and a postseason that has multiple rounds.

You’ll have so many opportunities to bet on the MLB, and like the NBA, there are plenty of opportunities to do so across months and months of games.

Free Picks & Predictions

When you hear the phrase free expert sports picks or free picks & predictions, these can come from multiple avenues.

With free expert sports picks, this could be for free NFL picks, free college football picks, free college basketball picks, free NBA picks, free MLB picks, and more. This means that you’ll be able to read and discover analysis from someone as to why they’re suggesting to wager in a certain way without costing you any money—that’s what we do here at Ballislife. We provide analysis on games and give our free expert sports picks.

There are ways to make free picks and predictions at online sportsbooks. Some games like Perfect 10 at SI Sportsbook allow you to make free picks and predictions with the chance of winning money, but these games/promotions are only available at specific sites.

Sleeper picks

If you’ve ever played fantasy sports, you’ve likely heard the term “sleeper.”

In that context, a sleeper is a player drafted relatively low or regarded as not all that valuable but has the potential to become something more.

With sports betting, this can be used in the context of futures betting, which allows you to make wagers on teams or players and their future accolades. This could be individual awards, championships, division titles, and more.

Sleeper picks allow you to look at the field of contestants for a bet and determine you may not win the bet but have a good enough chance to.

For example, heading into the NFL season, the Cincinnati Bengals we around +2000 to win the Super Bowl. They’re headed to the AFC Championship game at the time of this writing. They could’ve been viewed as a sleeper because of their success in the previous season, the strength of their quarterback, and other variables.

Picks against the spread

We’ve covered numerous sports above, so let’s look at NFL picks against the spread.

If the Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs are playing one another and the Bengals are -1, the Bengals need to win the game outright by more than one point. Should they win by exactly one point, all bettors who made picks against the spread of -1 for the Bengals or +1 for the Chiefs would get their money back as this would be a “push.”

The odds on point spread wagers stay around -110 because the point spread is designed to make teams as equal as possible while accounting for the deficits of the “l(fā)esser” team.

Sports Picks

With so many platforms taking bets across the United States and sites offering picks, there’s a lot of information on how to go about it.

Here at Ballislife, we can only recommend what we can recommend in terms of the best sites to place bets, resources for understanding sports picks across various leagues, and information about what each of these picks is.

We hope this page serves as a resource to better understand “picks” across the various top sports in the United States.