NBA Game Simulator
Pick any NBA game on the board and the simulator turns the live sportsbook prices for it into 10,000 complete game scripts, a final score, a full box score, and the range of outcomes around both.
Today's NBA board
No NBA games are on the board right now. The NBA regular season runs from October into April, followed by the playoffs. When games are posted and sportsbooks price them, they appear here automatically.
How an NBA simulation is built
An NBA simulation resolves at four levels at once. The team scores are sampled jointly, so the moneyline, the game total and both team-total ladders all reproduce in the same draw. The quarter and half markets are honored as interior splits that add back up to the full-game score. Each priced player is given a complete ladder across all nine stat categories, so a simulated stat line hits every threshold the book priced. First-basket markets resolve last, and their long-run rates sum to 100% across the players who are priced for them.
- Q1First quarter
- Q2Second quarter
- Q3Third quarter
- Q4Fourth quarter
Every piece is priced on its own, and the pieces reconcile to the full game.
Show these segments as a list
- Q1: First quarter
- Q2: Second quarter
- Q3: Third quarter
- Q4: Fourth quarter
What gets priced into an NBA simulation
These are the market families the NBA engine reads and reproduces. A given game only carries the markets its sportsbooks actually posted, so the depth varies from game to game.
- Game markets
- Team totals · moneyline · total
- Period markets
- Q1–Q4 and H1–H2
- Player markets
- 9 priced stats per player
- Specialty markets
- First basket, first team to score, and scoring method
SimTheGame keeps no NBA power ratings of its own: the priced market is the forecasting source, which is why the output describes what the market implies rather than claiming to beat it. See where the prices come from and how fresh they are. The full breakdown of each game lives in the simulator, and a free account opens one a day.
Supported, neutral and opposed: how NBA markets are tagged
Once the 10,000 runs are complete, every priced NBA market is compared against the sportsbook's own price for it with the vig removed, and tagged supported, neutral or opposed. The full rule, and why these are transparency signals rather than recommendations, is set out in the methodology.
The line marks even money. Each row shows where the two sit relative to it.
simulation book, vig removed
Show these examples as a table
| Tag | Simulation | Book | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| OPPOSED | 44% | 57% | Simulation and book land on opposite sides of even money. |
| NEUTRAL | 50% | 51% | Both sit at the line, so neither states a direction. |
| SUPPORTED | 62% | 55% | Same direction, and the simulation is above the book's fair price. |
Which NBA markets get tagged
- Moneyline
- Spread
- Game total
- Both team totals
- Quarter and half totals and spreads
- Nine player stat categories
- First basket and scoring method
First-basket markets are priced on one side only: a book quotes the price for a player to score first, never the price against it.
NBA simulator questions
Do a player's points, rebounds and assists agree with the combined markets?
Yes, because they come from the same simulated stat line rather than being priced separately. Every threshold the book posts becomes a point on that player's distribution, so a combined points-rebounds-assists market resolves against the same 10,000 stat lines as the three individual ones. If they disagreed, one of them would be wrong.
What is a first-basket market, and how is it simulated?
It is the price on a specific player scoring the game's opening basket. Books price one side only, so there is no price against it. In the simulation these resolve last, after the scoring has already been drawn, and their long-run rates sum to 100% across the players who carry a price.
Do the quarter markets add up to the full-game total?
Yes, by construction. Q1 to Q4 and the two halves are sampled as interior splits of the same game, so the four quarters reconcile to the final score in every one of the 10,000 runs. A quarter total that disagreed with the game total would be a bug, not a signal.
Which NBA player stats are simulated?
The nine categories books price: points, rebounds, assists, threes, steals, blocks, turnovers, and the combined PRA-style markets. A player only appears if the sportsbook posted a market for them, so a game with a thin player board produces a correspondingly thin simulated box score.
Run an NBA game yourself
Open the simulator to pick an NBA game and see the full 10,000-run breakdown, or browse every sport on today's board.
Other simulators: NFL game simulator · MLB game simulator · NHL game simulator · WNBA game simulator · CFL game simulator · MLS game simulator