The betting public supports the Golden State Warriors The Boston Celtics As the NBA Finals begins Thursday.
As of Thursday morning, the Warriors were -150 favorites for the title and had attracted most of the bets to win best-of-7 series at most online sportsbooks. PointsBet online sportsbook has 87% of the money bet on the Warriors winning the Finals.
However, the Celtics have received the largest reported bets. This includes a few from bettors whose opinions were respected by bookmakers.
Jeff Sherman is a vice-president of risk responsible for NBA odds for the SuperBook, Las Vegas. He told ESPN that his store accepted multiple bets on Boston to win the series at odds between +145 and 140 from highly influential bettors. Also, he placed a money-line wager on Boston to win Game 1 in San Francisco.
“I truly respect the two [bettors] Sherman sent a text message to ESPN confirming that Sherman had played the “sharp stuff” with them on Game 1 and the series.
Caesars Sportsbook also reported placing a $100,000 wager on the Celtics winning the series at +140 odds. This was the largest wager placed by the book as of Wednesday.
Craig Mucklow from Caesars, Caesars’ head for trading, stated that even with the huge bet on Boston, the book still needs the underdog Celtics to win the series and Game 1.
In the series opener, Golden State is a consensus favorite of 3.5 points. FanDuel was predicting the Warriors to win 80% of all spread bets as of Wednesday afternoon.
However, the betting public ignored Boston from the beginning. The Celtics were 50-1 longshots to win the championship when they entered the season. However, bettors didn’t pay much attention. PointsBet had more bets and more money on the Celtics than any other site. Detroit Pistons To win the NBA title, there was more pressure on the Celtics than they did to as the season ended in October.
Based on the preseason odds, if the Celtics win the title, they would become the biggest long-shot champion in the past 35 seasons, according to sports betting database SportsOddsHistory.com.