The popularity of NASCAR has become so big that the world of sports gambling has taken notice to the once good o’l boy sport. Wagering on NASCAR events has grown at a huge rate. One of the biggest reasons is that NASCAR betting has taken off is that its one of the easiest to learn.

Race betting has three types of bet a gambler can make on any given NASCAR race.
1. Bettors can pick a driver to win.
2. Wager a driver will finish in the top 3.
3. Wager that this driver finishes higher than that driver.

When presented with odds of a driver winning a race, NASCAR odds will generally look like this.

Tony Stewart + 150
Dale Earnhardt Jr. + 175
Kasey Kahne + 250
Jimmie Johnson + 500
Field + 600
This is money line odds, meaning for every $10 you wager on Tony Stewart you would win $15 if he wins the race. Those wagering on Jimmie Johnson would win $50 for every $10 bet. Since your wager is returned to you on a winning bet, those wagering $10 on Johnson would receive $60 back from a sportsbook and not $50, as sportsbooks require you to pay for your wager at the time it is made.

A lot of races will have a betting entry called “Field,” which is all other race drivers besides the ones listed by the sportsbook. You get more than one driver with one wager but the field almost always consists of those drivers given nearly no opportunity to win and should be left alone when betting.

When betting on a driver to finish in the top three the odds will be lower. The sportsbook must pay off three different winning bets, as instead to just one.

Odds for the drivers to finish in the top three would may look like this.

Tony Stewart – 120
Dale Earnhardt Jr. + 110
Kasey Kahne + 135
Jimmie Johnson + 210
Field + 185

With this case, a bettor would have to risk $12 to win $10 that Tony Stewart will finish first, second, or third, while the bettor wagering on Jimmie Johnson stands to win $21 on their $10 wager, instead of $50.

The final popular placed bet in NASCAR is head-to-head finish between two drivers. Here, a bettor doesn’t really care what place the driver finishes in, as long as the driver finishes higher than the other driver.

A line for this type of bet will look something like:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. – 150 Kasey Kahne + 140

In this example, bettors wagering on Earnhardt to finish higher than Kahne will be asked to risk $15 to win $10, while bettors believing that Kahne will finish higher than Earnhardt will put up $10 to win $14.

If you have gambled before you should have no trouble making the transition to NASCAR wagering, while those new to sports betting should be able to get the hang of NASCAR betting without much trouble.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 9:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.