NASCAR Betting Strategy

NASCAR betting can be an exciting way to enhance your racing experience. It can also be a great way to turn a killer profit if you’re wise to what’s going on and sharp with your bets. If you’re brand new to betting on NASCAR, you’ve come to the right place. In this dedicated guide, we’re going to walk you through everything you need to know to start betting like a pro.

Our expert staff compiled their best and most profitable NASCAR betting tips for your benefit. These tips will help you to not only get started betting on NASCAR, but they will help you to excel (or accelerate, vroom vroom!) your success. These strategies coupled with some good research and a strong knowledge of the sport could turn you into a professional bettor in no time.

Let’s hit the gas and get started learning about the world of betting on NASCAR!

Bet on Multiple Drivers

One of the best NASCAR betting tips has to do with the nature of the most popular bet types available. In traditional sports where you only have two teams competing, you never have the luxury of betting on multiple teams. If you bet on both teams, you’re guaranteed to lose money. With NASCAR, though, you don’t have two teams competing. Every weekend you have 43 different drivers competing for the win.

What does this mean for you the bettor? It means the payout odds are going to be higher on all of the drivers. It’s not rare to see odds like 7 to 1 on the favorite to win the race. This means that for every $1 you bet, you’d get $7 back in profit if you were correct. This is true of the majority of the bet types offered on NASCAR. These include pole position bets, fastest lap bets, to win outright bets, and even into some of the prop bets like most laps led.

This is not just a cool story. This means that you can make some adjustments to the ways that you bet to lower your variance and increase your chances of winning. How do you do this? You bet multiple drivers. Let’s say that you ended up betting on four different drivers to win who were all 7 to 1 (+700). Obviously, you can’t win all four of these bets because only one driver can win the race. But let’s see what happens if you win one of your bets and lose the other three. For example sake, we will say that you bet $10 on each of the drivers

In this example, even though you lost 75% of your bets, you still turned a profit of $40. You lost $30 on your bets on Drivers 1, 2, and 4, but you profited $70 on Driver 3. In reality with these odds, you could bet on six different drivers and still see a profit as long as one of your drivers won the race.

Now, there are some things that you need to be aware of. First, when you start making more bets, it can be more expensive if you don’t adjust your bets. We recommend figuring out a total budget first and then deciding your bet sizes. If your total budget for a race is $100 and you want to bet four drivers, don’t bet $100 on each driver. Bet $25 on each driver so that your total amount risked is still in line with your budget.

You also need to realize that you will make less money than if you only placed one big bet on one driver. While this is true, you have to remember that it is also significantly harder to win if you only have one driver on your squad. When you bet several drivers, you may lower the total amount you can win, but you are raising the likelihood that you’ll win. This cuts down on variance and can be a much better long-term strategy.

You also don’t have to bet the same amount on each driver. If you feel strongly about a driver, you can bet more on them. Sometimes a good strategy is to bet one or two drivers that you are confident in and then bet a few drivers that have a long shot to win that you like. Remember, the odds are not going to be the same for every driver. Don’t be surprised if you see some drivers that pay out 20 or 30 to 1 for a victory. Hitting one of these correctly would be a nice payday.

The strategy we just mentioned is great because it gives you a solid chance to lock up a small profit while still taking a gamble with a long shot that you have a good feeling about. Remember, sports betting is not about your win-loss record. It’s all about whether or not you are making money (Return on Investment). You can have a “losing” win-loss record and still be one of the best sports bettors on the planet.

Understand the Different Team Dynamics

While NASCAR is still very much an individual sport, it does revolve around teams and team dynamics. Some NASCAR owners have several drivers under their umbrella as well as each driver has a teammate. At the end of the race it only matters which individual driver wins, but before and during the race the teams will come into play. Teammates will help each other with track data, information on best lines, and most importantly will draft and help to push each other to victory.

How does this affect betting? You need to have a strong understanding of the different teams and how they choose to work together. A driver with a weak teammate is going to be at a significant disadvantage to drivers with a strong teammate. Imagine being on the track driving all by yourself with no real help for drafting, knowledge, or track push when you need it most because your teammate is in the back of the field. Imagine also that you’re out there alone competing against other drivers who have a teammate that’s there to help them draft and maybe drop a little block or two to help their guy or gal out.

As you can see, it’s very important to have a strong teammate that you can count on. When looking to place your bets, weigh this into the equation. Look at the driver’s support system which includes their teammate and also their coach and pit crew.

Take some time before you bet to study the different teams. Before you make a bet on an individual driver, make sure you at least take a few minutes to see who their teammate is and how they are projected to run at a particular track.

Championship Implications

At the beginning of the NASCAR season, this sort of information is a lot less important. As the season wears on and begins to approach the playoffs, the Championship and playoff implications become that much more important. At all times when betting, you need to know what the playoff or Championship picture looks like, who is in contention, and who needs the win or a strong showing.

Here’s an example where this might be important. Let’s say you are looking to bet on one of two teammate drivers. You know the driver does great at the track, and you think they are a smart bet. You also think their teammate will do well and should be there to help push them along at the end. Great bet? Well, maybe and maybe not. Let’s say that the second driver you think is going to help with the push is a few points short of making the playoffs and the main driver is locked in already.

While drivers will never admit it, do you think there’s a decent chance that main driver might yield to his teammate to allow both of them to make the playoffs? Again, no driver will admit this, but we think if you take an honest look at the question you might be able to find the answer that we are insinuating. If that is the case, you may be completely correct that both drivers are going to run hot through the race, but you’ll end up losing your bet because you didn’t look at the playoff implications.

This is just one example of a scenario where knowing this information might be important. You need to know who is going to be racing harder and who is going to be in cruise mode. Do you think someone who is not in the last round of the NASCAR playoffs is going to race someone who is hard on the last lap of Homestead? We highly doubt they are going to. They’re going to yield to the gravity of the situation and let that driver go. If you aren’t aware of this, you could be shooting your bet in the foot before the green flag even drops.

We’re not saying that you should use playoff and Championship implications as the end-all decider on your bets. Every race everyone goes out and runs hard, and some drivers could not care less and just want to win. That being said, you need to be realistic and make sure that you aren’t making a bet that does not match up with how the drivers are going to react in crunch time.

Track History

Out of all the strategy tips, we have on this page, this one is probably the most important to pay attention to. You HAVE to know which drivers do best at which specific tracks and which specific types of tracks. Too often, people just pay attention to how well a driver is doing in general. They say, “Oh this driver is on a tear. I have to bet them on this next race.”

The problem with this is that every track in NASCAR is so different and requires a different set of skills to conquer. For example, some drivers are monsters when it comes to restrictor plate racing. Does this mean that they’re also going to be the best at short-track racing? The answer is most likely going to be a no. A great driver will do well anywhere, but they are going to struggle to beat the drivers that specialize in the track types that aren’t their best.

The good news is this is not that difficult to figure out. Pull up the historical data on the tracks and see which drivers have done well there over the past few years. Mix that information with how the driver is currently doing as a whole and every other factor you look at, and you’re going to have a pretty solid prediction about which driver you think is going to do well.

Find a few that you think are going to do well? No problem! Based on our earlier strategy tip, you can bet all of them. That’s one thing we love about betting NASCAR. If you can’t decide between a couple of drivers, you can just split your money up and bet on all of them.

With track history, make sure you also look at how the drivers have done at similar tracks that year. Many of the tracks they end up at twice anyways, so you can definitely get a lot of information based on how they did earlier in the year if they are running the same track again. Ultimately, this is one of those things that the more research that you do, the more informed decision you are going to be able to make.

Putting It All Together

Is just reading this guide going to make you the best NASCAR sports bettor on the planet? We wish that were the case, but it’s not so. You have to take these tips and strategies and couple them with some hard work and research. The information is out there to make great picks. We’ve told you how to use that information, and now you just have to get it.

Betting on NASCAR and being successful is not difficult if you know the right strategies and are willing to put in the work. We’ve now given you half of the equation; it’s up to you to fill in the rest, and then you can reap the rewards!