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We are now just over a week away from the Daytona 500. Driver Championship bets will remain available throughout the year. However, another type of season long bet, driver win totals, will likely be unavailable after the green flag on Sunday.
I don’t love season long bets. I normally don’t like to have money locked up for months at a time unless its for significant plus money. Every dollar I lock up in for 10 months is a dollar that I can’t use during the season on other bets which can compound my winnings. That said as I was looking through the driver win total bets at Superbook this week I saw one that stands out.
This line was quite surprising to me when I first saw it. For starters, the other book that has win total bets, Caesars, has this at -130. In fact, at Caesars the odds for under 1.5 wins are +100, which means in theory you could engage in arbitrage (arb) with this bet and try to lock in profit. That said, for just $12.50 in profits for every $225 wagered, that’s not an arb I’m interested in making. In addition, books hate bettors who make money by arbitraging bets. So if a book suspects you are doing this they may significantly limit your future ability to bet with them.
Since I’m not going to arb the bet I want to take the position that I think has more upside. The implied probability of +125 is just 44.44%. I think Logano’s actual odds of winning 2 or more races are well north of that. I think he wins two races at least 50% of the time, if not even more. Lets look at why.
In 11 seasons with Team Penske, Logano has multiple wins in seven seasons (63.6%). Since his first multi-win season in 2014 Logano has never had back to back season where he didn’t win multiple races. Logano is just 34 years old this season despite having 15 years of full time Cup Series experience. Given this, there is no reason to think that he should be slowing down. In fact, in his mid 30s Logano, already a two time Cup Champion, should be entering the prime of his career.
Despite Logano having a “down year” personally, aside from Austin Cindric, Penske as a team was strong in 2023. Starting with the obvious, Ryan Blaney won the Championship. In addition, Penske had fast cars throughout the year.
In my incident adjusted speed metric, excluding the six drafting races, Logano had a Top 5 car six times. Blaney was even better, with a Top 5 car nine times. Blaney and the 12 Team were the fastest car three times and the second fastest car in another three races. This all happened in a year where Ford was generally seen as having an aerodynamic disadvantage with their nose. Ford’s nose has been redesigned for 2024. This means they should only get better at the non-drafting tracks.
Penske was also strong in drafting races. Logano (Atlanta 1) and Blaney (Talladega 2) both won drafting races last year. At Win The Race we also have a metric called True Performance Ranks. True Performance Ranks are a measure of how a driver actually performed rather than focusing on just finishing position. For 2023 at the six drafting tracks the Team Penske drivers are ranked 1, 2, 3.
Finally, if we give the Clash any weight (and I give it very little) Penske looked strong there too. Blaney qualified poorly, but raced through the field and finished third. Logano had a car that was capable of winning the race and finished fourth. Once again, outside of Austin Cindric, Penske looked strong.
Logano is an elite driver. He is a two time Cup Series Champion. At Team Penske he is racing for the team that has won the past two Cup Championships. He is at a prime age to win. All things considered Joey should be favored, not a dog, to win multiple races in 2024. At +125 I’m plenty happy to bet on Logano to do what he has done seven times before and pick up multiple points race wins this season.
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