Lega 1 is the highest level of domestic basketball in Italy and with basketball betting growing in popularity all the time, there is growing interest from both bookies and punters in Lega 1. We take a look at who will be crowned outright Lega 1 champions in the 2015-2016 season and hope to shoot some three-point betting tips whilst bringing you the best odds no matter what you want to bet on.
Before we take a look at the outright betting, a little more about our odds comparison. More and more betting sites cover Italian basketball which gives punters more and more choice when it comes to the odds. This is great, because more competition usually means better odds but it also means that the canny bettor now has to shop around for their odds.
Rather than manually searching all the different Italian basketball betting odds, our live betting odds comparison allows you to quickly and easily see which bookie is offering the best odds. This saves you time and means you’ll always land the biggest wins, so be sure to compare your odds here before you place your bets – a new bookie may even mean an extra free bet, boosting your profitability even further.
Anyway, back to Lega 1 and there is no other team to start with than Armani Milano. Sportingbet price Italy’s most successful basketball team at odds of evens in the outright market and whilst that may look short, we think it offers real value given the undoubted class possessed by the Scarpette Rosse.
They have 26 Italian Championships to their name, making them far and away the most decorated team in the league and whilst they missed out last term we think they will bounce back in style here. Last season they dominated throughout the regular campaign, winning 267 of their 30 matches to top the standings by eight points. However, they went down in the semis to eventual champions Banco di Sardegna Sassari, the fifth seeds, losing a tight series 4-3.
Olimpia Milano, to use their non-sponsored name, are coached by Jasmin Repeša and have an Italian core to their squad, with a sprinkling of US and Croatian magic and given their talent we have to believe last year was merely a blip. They ran into a Sassari side that hit form at just the right time but on paper there is nothing to suggest that was anything other than a freak result.
That said, Sassari are the second favourites when it comes to the outright Lega 1 winner market, priced at odds of 9/2 with Ladbrokes, which may be big enough to tempt some punters. They came from nowhere a little last season, having finished the regular season fifth with a 19-11 record that included home and away defeats to Milan, the home game a 111-112 thriller.
They are a team blessed with plenty of offensive potency – indeed only Milan outscored them in regular season last year – but that will probably need to be a little better at the other end of they are to retain their title. We don’t see it though and despite one or two top players they lack the depth of Milan and will struggle to replicate league and cup double of last season.
Beyond those two in the outright winner market come Reggio Emilia and Reyer Venezia, but with both of those priced at double-digit odds it’s clear the odds men view this as a two-horse race. We do too, but there will be just one winner in Lega 1 - and we predict that will be Armani Milano.