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New York Times
17-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Why sportsbooks will be ‘pulling against the Lakers' and Luka Doncic in the NBA Playoffs
With the NBA Playoffs tipping off on Saturday, one team stands out as the most popular NBA title wager at every sportsbook. Is it the defending champion Boston Celtics, who racked up 60-win campaigns in consecutive years? Or the Oklahoma City Thunder, who became the seventh team in history to reach 68 wins in a regular season? Advertisement Not quite. That distinction belongs to the 50-32 Los Angeles Lakers. 'They're always going to be one of the top NBA teams bet with us, just like the Yankees [are for MLB] and Cowboys [are for NFL],' said Hal Egeland, trading strategy manager at BetMGM. 'Between LeBron James and the Lakers, those are two of the biggest fan bases in the NBA. But once the Luka [Dončić] trade happened, that Lakers action was supercharged. Adding to the excitement level with someone like Luka, it just became a perfect storm.' The Lakers opened at +2500 (bet $100 to win $2500) to win the 2025 NBA championship at BetMGM and were up at +4000 before one of the most shocking moves in recent sports history. BetMGM immediately moved the Lakers' title odds to +1800 after the Dončić-Anthony Davis trade was first reported on Feb. 2. That number went down as low as +700 after a $100,000 wager came in on the Lakers at +1000 for a potential win of $1 million. Now, Los Angeles sits at +1100 — only behind the Thunder (+175), Celtics (+220) and Cleveland Cavaliers (+600) ahead of the NBA playoffs. Among all NBA championship wagers placed at BetMGM, the Lakers are tops with both 15.9 percent of the bets and 15.4 percent of the money. It's the same story at other sportsbooks as well. ESPN BET is reporting 17 percent of the bets and 19.5 percent of the money coming in on Los Angeles to win it all. 'In terms of liability, it's the Lakers and then everyone else,' said Adrian Horton, Director of North American Sports Trading at ESPN BET. 'They were attracting interest over the first half of the season, but it's really kicked into high gear since the Luka trade, as nearly a third of all NBA champion money has been on LA. As the team continues to perform and the betting public continues to back them, we'll be pulling against the Lakers in just about every playoff scenario.' But what did Lakers title betting action look like ahead of the blockbuster trade, and how does it compare to what it's been since Luka donned the purple and gold? According to Pikkit, an app that allows sports bettors to sync their sportsbook accounts, the Lakers were sixth among all teams in both bets (3 percent) and money (2 percent) on NBA title bets tracked from when the market was first posted on June 18 all the way to Feb. 1. From Feb. 2 to now, Los Angeles has captured 30 percent of all bets and 35 percent of all money among all NBA title bets tracked by Pikkit. There have actually been more Lakers title bets tracked at Pikkit in that span of 10-plus weeks than any other team has received in the entire 10 months that NBA championship odds have been up. Advertisement 'Whenever a major player goes to a new team, we'll see immediate action on that new team,' said Johnny Avello, race and sports operations director at DraftKings. 'It happens all the time, even outside of the NBA. When the Mets got Juan Soto, we saw a bunch of action on the Mets. The Luka trade was even more so since there wasn't a whole lot going on, and it became the focal point of the week.' Hard Rock Bet told The Athletic that since the Dončić trade, the sportsbook has seen an average of 66.7 percent more bets on Lakers games compared to when Anthony Davis was still on the team. Additionally, at Hard Rock Bet, the Lakers have collected the most bets and money to win the Western Conference, and the Lakers over the Celtics is the most popular NBA Finals exacta wager. 'Luka to the Lakers changed everything,' said Neil Walsh, Hard Rock Bet's SVP-Sportsbook. 'Since then, we've seen incredible enthusiasm for the Lakers across the board and LA is now our most popular selection to win the title by any measure — and it isn't even close.' It hasn't been just bets on Los Angeles to win the championship that sportsbooks have been seeing. BetMGM opened the Lakers as -160 favorites to win their first-round playoff series against the Minnesota Timberwolves. That price is up to -200 thanks to 98 percent of the money coming in on Los Angeles, which Egeland called 'easily the most lopsided action' of any playoff series. 'The Lakers and Warriors are the biggest liabilities to win the NBA championship,' Christian Cipollini, BetMGM trading manager, told The Athletic. 'As a result, the sportsbook gets to cheer for the Thunder and Celtics, both favorites to win their respective conferences.'
New York Times
01-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Sportsbooks unphased by new torpedo bats: ‘We don't do any knee-jerk reactions'
Torpedo bats have taken the baseball world by storm this season, with the New York Yankees unleashing them against the Milwaukee Brewers to start the season and smashing an MLB-record 15 home runs over their first three games. The Yankees scored four runs on Opening Day before exploding for 20 and 12 runs, respectively, in their final two games against the Brewers. It's been runs galore for the Bronx Bombers, leading us to the question: Have sportsbooks noticed any early betting patterns with the popular new bats? Advertisement For those of you who haven't read about the bat yet, simply put, it's a bat designed by an MIT-educated physicist that redistributes its weight from its end to the area where hitters usually make contact with the baseball — around 7-8 inches below its tip. As a result, you get a bat that looks more like a bowling pin and has a thicker sweet spot. Combine that bigger barrel look going viral on social media with bettors seeing a ton of runs scored and a lot of dingers, and you get the perfect storm of people betting overs. According to Pikkit, an app that allows sports bettors to sync their sportsbook accounts, just 42.5 percent of all Brewers-Yankees total bets that it tracked on Opening Day came in on the over (that over/under closed at 8). In the series finale on Sunday, with the total closing at 8.5, 49.8 percent of those bets on the total tracked were on the over. But it's been a completely different story heading into Tuesday night's Yankees game. Pikkit shared that a whopping 90.5 percent of the bets on the Diamondbacks-Yankees total (currently over/under 8.5) are on the over. While bettors are rushing to back the Yankees and overs, bookmakers seem unfazed. 'We started seeing some more over money on the Yankees in that third game against the Brewers,' said Johnny Avello, race and sports operations director at DraftKings. 'That's just bettors following a trend, and they will continue to follow it if it holds up. We don't do any knee-jerk reactions on a smaller sample size like three games. The total against the Diamondbacks and Corbin Burnes is still at 8.5 [for tonight], so obviously, we haven't made any crazy adjustments.' Some sportsbooks are even jumping in on the fun with new offerings leaning into the craze. DraftKings now has a tab under the MLB section of its sportsbook app labeled 'Torpedo Bats,' where it has filtered home run props that only show batters using torpedo bats. Fanatics Sportsbook promoted a parlay titled 'The Torpedo Touch' on its Twitter/X account earlier on Tuesday, which features four hitters using the new bat to all record a hit in Tuesday's games. Advertisement 'I'm already seeing guys on Twitter and Instagram sharing lists of guys who are using torpedo bats,' said Seamus Magee, trading manager at BetMGM. 'So I can't say I don't anticipate extra action on guys like Anthony Volpe or Jazz Chisholm or Cody Bellinger. But there were also non-Yankees included like Oneil Cruz and Elly De La Cruz. The betting public may be obsessed with the Yankees since they're getting the early headlines, but with these other players mentioned as well, I think you'll see those guys pop up more and more on social media with their home run odds too.' Speaking of De La Cruz, Pikkit told The Athletic that he has attracted the most prop bets of any player for Tuesday's slate among all the MLB wagers it has tracked. Could you blame bettors? The Reds star whacked two home runs and had two other hits on Monday night with his torpedo bat, leading to a career-high seven RBIs. Hard Rock Bet also shared that the fourth-most popular parlay in any sport Tuesday is a three-leg home run parlay at +14150 (or 141.5-to-1) odds involving hitters using torpedo bats: De La Cruz, Chisholm and Francisco Lindor. This was a parlay that was not prebuilt and promoted by the sportsbook initially, though it now resides in the 'Popular Parlays' section of the app. One market to watch is home run prop bets, a popular wager among casual fans. 'Player props will be more of a focus for the public compared to the total,' said Eric Biggio, lead baseball trader at Caesars Sportsbook. 'I'd say for guys who aren't stars like Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm who are using torpedo bats, that the action on their home run props will be about five-fold compared to Opening Day. For Volpe, his Opening Day home run odds were 12-1 with us, and now he's down to 7-1. Chisholm was closer to 7-1 to homer on Opening Day, and today he's a little under 5-1. So those are the adjustments that are taking place. I still think it's too short of a sample size for bigger adjustments like totals.' Will torpedo bats eventually make sportsbooks adjust? This will be a fun topic to keep on as the season progresses.
