Chicago Street Race betting report: SVG has the market's attention

Shane van Gisbergen isn‘t sneaking up on anyone this year.

Ahead of the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race on the Chicago street course last year, the New Zealander opened at 100-to-1 odds to win it. SVG drew immediate action from bettors and rewarded his backers with a first-place finish.

For Sunday‘s version of the event, the Grant Park 165, van Gisbergen opened at 10-to-1 odds at the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas. Despite that drastically shortened price, bettors remain interested.

In fact, by the time the SuperBook was ready to take bets outside of Nevada, a customer in Vegas had already placed a wager on the No. 16 Wendy‘s Saucy Nuggs Chevrolet. That bet prompted a move to +800, and the SuperBook took another bet at those odds.

RELATED: Chicago schedule | Opening odds

Ed Salmons, vice president of risk management at the SuperBook, understands the SVG sentiment. A crash on the last lap and a 30-second penalty at the Circuit of the Americas on March 23 kept van Gisbergen from sweeping this year‘s three Xfinity road course races so far. He led 20 of the 50 laps that day in Austin.

“There‘s no doubt” SVG should be among this week‘s favorites, Salmons told NASCAR.com. “There have been three road course races in the Xfinity Series (this year), and he’s won two of the three (Portland, Sonoma). And he should be three-for-three.”

Jim Sannes, managing editor of digital media at FanDuel Research, understands van Gisbergen‘s position near the top of the Chicago oddsboard, but the driver is priced too short for Sannes‘ tastes.

“It’s just hard for me to get there, given he’s not in the highest-end equipment, even if we know the driver matters a bit more here,” Sannes said in a DM. “I have SVG at 5.6% to win (which translates to about +1690 odds), which could very well be too low. I just respect the Cup Series regulars enough to think they’ll improve as they head back to the track for a second time.”

A different-looking oddsboard

Beyond van Gisbergen, the Grant Park 165 oddsboard features a handful of other drivers adept at road racing who are priced ahead of Cup superstars from top garages. We see names like Chris Buescher, AJ Allmendinger and Michael McDowell with shorter odds than Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.

Here are odds, as of Wednesday, from three top sportsbooks — the SuperBook, BetMGM and DraftKings:

Driver skill, of course, gets weighted more heavily on road courses than it does on ovals.

“I agree with the betting markets in putting guys like McDowell and Allmendinger ahead of the regular contenders,” Sannes said. “Back in the day, when there were only two road-course races per year, it was fine to let overall form play a bigger role in trying to predict who would excel. But now that we have bigger samples on road courses, we can see that expectations for guys like McDowell genuinely should be higher than they are for the others, so my model fully agrees with the market in that regard.”

McDowell, per Salmons, is among the drivers drawing early bets at the SuperBook.

However, the increased emphasis on road course racing on the Cup circuit has helped create a more wide-open field. This year’s schedule includes five road/street races.

In seasons past with just two such events, “you could pick your six guys that could win the race,” Salmons recalls.

Chase Elliott was tops among that select group, automatically priced as the favorite every time Cup drivers were about to go around more than four turns. As drivers gained road racing experience, the field caught up, and Elliott can be found this week at 10-to-1 odds.

Around the track

Here are some other drivers to watch on the Chicago streets on Sunday:

• A poorly-timed caution likely kept Christopher Bell from winning this race in 2023. He could be had at +2500 ahead of last year‘s event, but nothing near that juicy is available for Bell this year. Still, he‘s among the most popular bets at the SuperBook this week.

• Sannes has McDowell and Kyle Busch both circled this week. McDowell wins 7.9% of Sannes‘ simulations (a play at +1200 or better), and Busch is at 4.6% (+2100 or better). “Not only have they raced really well on road courses the past two years, but both must win if they want to make the playoffs,” Sannes said.

• Some bettors can‘t seem to stay away from Hamlin, and Salmons is just fine with that. “It’s funny, every time we have one of these road course races, literally the first bet is Denny Hamlin at 30-to-1, and it didn’t fail to happen again.” Salmons wrote bets on Hamlin at the same price for COTA and Sonoma. Hamlin remains +3000 at the SuperBook as of Wednesday.

• While bookmakers and bettors are armed with more road racing data, including that from a run over this course last year, expect the odds to shift on Saturday. “Obviously where they qualify and what practice looks is going to dictate the odds really strongly,” Salmons said.

Marcus DiNitto is Senior News Editor at Gaming Today. He‘s been covering sports business for 25 years and sports betting for 12. NASCAR is among the many sports Marcus enjoys betting but often loses on. Follow him on Twitter.