Sportsbooks face hefty losses should the Los Angeles Lakers win the championship this season. And really, they only have themselves to blame. After spending the past few years hedging against longshot runs, oddsmakers turned off the hand brake and went wild.
LeBron James and company began the campaign at +2500 to win the NBA title this season. That seemed fair given the team’s wonky roster construction. However, things went sideways as the Lakers went 2-10 to start the year.
Desperate to tap into the ever-lucrative Los Angeles betting market, sportsbooks had to push odds out further and further to attract wagers. Simply put, they were looking to bait some chumps into throwing some cash at what seemed to be a lost cause.
Some sportsbooks placed a Los Angeles Lakers championship at +15000. Now they are sweating bullets as the franchise is only eight wins away. That being said, the Lakers didn’t screw oddsmakers. Oddsmakers screwed oddsmakers. Moving the odds to such an extreme didn’t really make sense when you consider how conservative they were last season.
Let’s take a refresher course, shall we?
Sportsbooks kept the LA Lakers as a title favorite despite some of the most lifeless play you’ll ever see. In January 2021, they had the league’s 14th-best record but were still among the championship favorites. The team ended up missing the NBA Playoffs altogether. And yet, oddsmakers refused to take any risks by pushing out their odds.
It was the exact opposite in 2022-23. Hell, you could find Los Angeles to win the NBA Championship at +2500 throughout Las Vegas before the start of the postseason despite them looking surprisingly competent to close the season.
Why exactly oddsmakers were more concerned about the ill-fitting Russell Westbrook version of the Lakers than this side is a real mystery. Sure, they were a few games out of a playoff spot for most of this campaign. But if you were worried about last year’s side, then this year’s lineup deserved the same level of respect.
Sportsbooks will be burned by a Los Angeles Lakers championship and it’s their own damn fault.
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