Nascar & Auto Racing Best Bets & Predictions

How To Bet On Nascar

Each week during the NASCAR season, the chaos of each race makes for some incredibly exciting action. It can also make for some incredibly exciting betting action, as bettors can make a ton of different wagers on races throughout the year. Throughout each NASCAR season, we will provide our best bets on races held at tracks around the United States.

Types of NASCAR Betting Picks

There are not a ton of different NASCAR betting markets to wager into, but there are enough to give bettors some variety. Here, we look at the different types of NASCAR bets that can be placed on each race, as bettors have the green flag to try their luck across these different betting markets.

The most popular NASCAR wager is simply trying to pick the winner of each race. That isn’t necessarily an easy task since 43 cars enter Cup Series races. Different sportsbooks have their own policies regarding NASCAR races. Some list odds for each entrant, while others post them on roughly half the drivers and lump the remaining ones into the “field,” which gets you a number of drivers; if any one of them happens to win, you win your bet. The trade-off is that the drivers in the field are given the least chance of winning.

Odds on the race winners are usually listed in moneyline format, so you can expect to see something resembling:

Jimmie Johnson +600
Kyle Busch +700
Matt Kenseth +1000
Kyle Larson +3000
Field +2000

Most of the time, the favorite in a NASCAR race exceeds odds of +400, so the payouts aren’t bad, but given the number of contenders in each race, picking the winner is a tough task.

Head-to-head matchups are another popular bet. The sportsbooks put up a number of different pairings and you wager on the driver you believe will finish higher. It makes no difference if your pick wins the race or finishes 28th, just as long as he places higher than the other driver in the match-up. Sportsbooks try to make the pairings fairly equal, meaning you’re unlikely to see one of the race favorites matched up with a driver lumped into the field category. The one negative aspect of these wagers is that sportsbooks frequently use a 30-cent line, so the odds on two drivers who are thought to be evenly matched will be -115 for each driver.

There’s also the top-three wager, NASCAR’s version of a show bet in horse racing, where you win your wager if your driver finishes in one of the top three positions. These bets pay out quite a bit less than betting on one driver to win, as the sportsbooks now have to pay off wagers on three different drivers instead of one. The odds on finishing in the top three would look like this:

Jimmie Johnson +125
Kyle Busch +175
Matt Kenseth +250
Kyle Larson +750

As you can see by comparing these odds with the ones above on the same drivers, the payouts are a good deal less than one-third of the driver’s odds of winning the race and the field bet has been taken out of the equation, which is typically the case. The relatively low payouts tend to make these a poor proposition, as many times the favorites are plagued by car troubles or are taken out of the race due to a crash and they won’t be finishing in the top three.

More sportsbooks post a few proposition-type wagers on each race, where you can bet on such things as the winning car having an odd or even number, the winning car having a number over or under a particular number, the winning car manufacturer, and more. The bigger races tend to have more props, such as the number of cautions, the number of race leaders, and the like.

Odds on winning the Cup Series championship are available before the season begins, as well as throughout the season. After each race is completed, the odds are typically adjusted to factor in the results of the latest race.

NASCAR Best Bets

Each week throughout the NASCAR Cup Series season, our sports handicappers publish their picks for the week on the track. Be sure to get our NASCAR best bets throughout the Cup Series campaign, where they take their top choice to win each race outright and look to have as profitable a season as possible as the top drivers on the circuit look to grab the checkered flag.

Head to Heads

Another type of bet that is popular throughout the NASCAR season is the head to head bet. With this betting market, two drivers are put against one another, and the driver with the better finishing position is graded the winner. This is a very exciting way to have action on a NASCAR event, even if the two drivers in a head to head matchup are well out of contention to actually win a race outright.

Handicapping head-to-head matchups in NASCAR is interesting, as bettors need to keep the rest of the field in mind despite the fact that the finishing positions of other drivers do not matter in the outcome of these bets. For example, if a driver not listed in a head-to-head matchup causes a wreck that takes one of the drivers involved out of a race, that will decide the outcome of one of these bets. It is up to bettors to understand which drivers are in a better position to win each of these head-to-head matchups.

Top-3, Top-5, and Top-10 Finishes

Also available at most online US sportsbooks are bets on drivers to finish in the top 3, top 5, and top 10 of each NASCAR race. The prices on these bets are not quite as generous as the prices on individual race winner wagers. However, there are more chances for bettors to win these wagers, as bettors have more margin for error while having a chance to finish within each range of finishing positions.

With these bets, bettors can be rewarded handsomely for backing drivers who are simply proficient at avoiding danger in each race. While avoiding wrecks can be very luck-dependent during each race, drivers who race from the front of the pack and stay away from danger could make for very profitable bets in this type of NASCAR wager.

Other Racing Series

After NASCAR, the next two big series you’ll typically find odds listed for are IndyCar and Formula 1. The bigger races, the Indianapolis 500 in IndyCar and the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula 1, have more betting options than a typical race on the schedule, in which you’ll find odds to win the race and possibly only one or two other wagers.

Sportsbooks usually list odds on winning the season championship for both IndyCar and Formula 1 series, usually throughout the season, again updated after each race to reflect the latest results.

The target audience of an individual sportsbook often influences the number of different racing series. Sportsbooks that cater to European bettors typically accept bets on more different series than one focused on the American market. These will frequently include Formula E, World Rally, and Speedway motorcycle racing, along with major races, such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

If auto racing is your thing, it’s worth your time to check out the different race offerings of a sportsbook when choosing one to sign up with. We recommend the sportsbooks listed above, as they have plenty of motorsports betting options to choose from, along with some strong promotions for new customers.

From the Daytona 500 to the Playoffs

Our NASCAR betting team evaluates races from the beginning of the NASCAR season all the way to the end of the playoff run. That means plenty of chances for bettors to follow our NASCAR betting advice to make the best possible picks and have the best chance to turn a profit for months on end.