Intro to 2024-2025 NBA Win TotalsThe synecdoche that uses "Vegas says" when talking about the wider betting market's opinion on a particular subject, becomes increasingly more peculiar whenever Las Vegas Valley sportsbooks come notably late to the party in dropping new futures odds. This summer, East Coast books like FanDuel and DraftKings were the first to open the NBA Win Total betting market in mid-July, soon followed by ESPN Bet. In recent days, Vegas, including Westgate Nevada, has thrown its opinion into the ring by opening their own NBA Win Totals.
To a large degree, the new Win Totals market mirrors the 2024-2025 NBA Title Odds, which have been out since June. The Celtics are the title favorites at +300; they have the highest win total at 58.5. Brooklyn is the most absurd long shot at 1000/1; they have the lowest win total, dipping down to 18.5 in recent days. Most of this we already knew. However, the insight is in the details. While it is difficult to judge and compare the relative merits of a 60/1 vs. a 100/1 title favorite, when armed with NBA win total data, we gain a clearer picture of how the market thinks this NBA season will shake out.
2024-2025 NBA Win Totals (Over/Unders)
BOS 58.5
OKC 56.5
NYK 53.5
PHI 53.5
MIN 52.5
DEN 50.5
DAL 49.5
MIL 49.5
CLE 48.5
MEM 47.5
PHO 47.5
IND 46.5
NOP 46.5
ORL 46.5
SAC 46.5
MIA 44.5
GSW 43.5
HOU 43.5
LAL 43.5
LAC 40.5
SAS 36.5
ATL 35.5
UTA 30.5
CHO 29.5
TOR 28.5
CHI 27.5
DET 25.5
POR 22.5
WAS 20.5
BKN 18.5
Playoff Teams (1st-6th)
---East: BOS, PHI, NYK, MIL, CLE, IND
---West: OKC, MIN, DEN, DAL, PHX, MEM
Play-in Teams (7th-10th)
---East: ORL, MIA, ATL, CHO
---West: NOP, SAC, HOU/LAL/GSW in a 3-way tie for 9th.
NBA Win Total Stats & Fun Facts
For the seemingly 30th year in a row (since Jordan retired essentially), the West is markedly better than the East. The average Win Total in the West at open is O/U 43.8, whereas the average Win Total in the East is 39.1. As books are always wont to skew high on these win totals (news flash—most folks prefer to bet Overs, generating value on Unders writ large), the average Win Total across the NBA is 41.5, more than a half game above the theoretical average number of wins each team should have over the course of the 82-game season.
There are some notable variations between the highest Win Totals and the Title Odds. For instance, Philadelphia has the second-best title odds at most books but is only tied for the 3rd highest Win Total, as the market adjudges the 76ers' top-heavy roster featuring often-injured Joel Embiid and Paul George to be particularly at risk of some bumps along the regular season road—even if, as we see in the title odds market, they are perceived to have the second-highest upside behind Boston.
Nineteen out of the 30 NBA teams are projected to have a winning record in 2024-2025. Moreover, from the #1 Celtics (~58.5) to the #19 team, the Houston Rockets (~43.5), 19 teams are expected to be 2.5 games above .500. Had the Clippers retained Paul George, there would be 20 teams expected to be good this season.
Well, the losses have to come from somewhere, and with a highly anticipated draft upcoming, there is good reason for bad teams to want to land one of those top spots in next year's lottery. That's why I think that while my power ratings give the Nets 22 wins over the season, the market has them significantly lower than that at O/U 18.5
Converting NBA Wins into Cents
To examine how to convert different win totals with various prices, let’s look at a definitively “average team,” expected to win 50% of its games. While the math is not 100% the same for every team and every win total, it is close enough to give us a good sense of the likelihood of any team winning 1, 2, or 3 additional games above their baseline Vegas expectation.
Imagine we’re flipping a coin 82 times, with each flip representing a game in an NBA season. The expectation is that you’ll get 41 heads (or wins) out of 82 flips. If we remove the chance of getting exactly 41 heads (a push), the probability of getting Over 41 heads or Under 41 heads is exactly 50%, which corresponds to even odds (+100) on a vigless line.
Now, let’s consider what happens when we adjust the expected number of heads and the corresponding probabilities using a binomial distribution calculator:
| Baseline O/U |
Difference from Baseline |
Vigless Over |
Vigless Under
|
Prob. Over |
Prob. Under |
| 41 |
Baseline |
+100 |
+100 |
50% |
50% |
| 41.5 |
+0.5 Ws |
+119 |
-119 |
44% |
56% |
| 42 |
+1 W |
+147 |
-147 |
41% |
59% |
| 42.5 |
+1.5 Ws |
+170 |
-170 |
37% |
63% |
| 43.0 |
+2 Ws |
+217 |
-217 |
32% |
68% |
| 43.5 |
+2.5 Ws |
+244 |
-244 |
29% |
71% |
| 44.0 |
+3 Ws |
+323 |
-323 |
23% |
77% |
The probability of getting more than 41.5 heads (i.e., 42 or more heads) is about 45.61%, which converts to approximately +119 on a vigless line (+119.3 to be exact)—meaning a ½ win improvement over baseline for an expected 41-win team represents around 19 cents off of baseline expectations.
So, if half a win is 19 cents, is a full win worth 38 cents? Not quite. As we often see, “buying” points or wins in this case is not a linear deal. A great example is if you could buy 100 points to the line in any NBA game, it would be worth almost infinite cents—because you would be virtually guaranteed to win. The largest victory ever recorded in an NBA game was 73 points when the Thunder drilled the Grizzlies in December 2021. So the 100-point teaser is undefeated in NBA history.
The math bears out this escalation of the value of a win the further you venture away from baseline.
Getting over 42 heads out of 82 flips—or 42 wins out of 82 games for a purely average team—is about 41%. (Note: Like we did when considering O/U 41 wins, the probability of a ‘push’ is removed as it equates to the same as a 'no bet'). We can convert a 41% chance to approximately +147 on a vigless line. So, 1 win from expectation, we conclude, is worth about 47 cents.
The value of each additional win increases as we move away from the baseline of 41 heads.
0.5 wins = 19 cents, 1 win = 47 cents, 1.5 wins = 70 cents, 2 wins = 117 cents, 2.5 wins = 144 cents, 3 wins = 223 cents. This cost is reflected in the increasing vig.
This math proves insightful when we consider the moves we have already seen in this win total market.
Many books provided a betting line for the Utah Jazz early in the process—as their team makeup and the future of their star Lauri Markkanen were firmly up in the air. ESPN Bet stuck its neck out with an Over/Under of 27.5 (-110 either way). Now that Markkanen has signed, the market price for the Jazz is O/U 30.5; moreover, we can infer that if a book wanted to post the original line at O/U 27.5, the correct price according to the market would be around Over 27.5 (-333) and Under 27.5 (+313)—with books likely expanding the straddle to something like Over 27.5 (-340) and Under 27.5 (+280). Cockroaches.