NASCAR Betting Guide: South Point 400

It's always good to shop around for the best line when betting. It's a necessary practice that you need to deploy if you want to be successful long-term.

This week's South Point 400 in Las Vegas is a great example.

Right now, Kyle Larson is +260 to win the race at Online Sportsbook. It's for good reason, too. Larson has won 2 of 6 points-paying races at 1.5-mile tracks, and his 836 laps led in those races are 684 more than anybody else. That doesn't even count his win in the All-Star Race, which was also at a 1.5-mile track.

My simulations show value in Larson there. He's at 29.3% to win in the sims, and his implied odds are 27.8%. So, if you had exclusively access to just FanDuel, you could bet Larson.

In reality, that's likely not the case, though, and you can get Larson at a better number elsewhere. You should bet Larson this week. But if I'm writing up the best bets based on FanDuel's odds, specifically, he has to get the squeeze. Get that action somewhere else.

Luckily, allocating 29.3% win odds to Larson doesn't sap all value out of the rest of the field. We just have to be a bit selective, knowing there's a massive, very speedy road block on the path to victory lane. The best outright based on FanDuel's odds, though, is a guy who has beaten Larson head-to-head twice in the 550-horsepower package this year.

Let's start there and then outline other bets to make based on the odds at FanDuel Sportsbook.

Ryan Blaney to Win (+1700)

With Larson's odds at FanDuel being so short, you'd think we'd be able to get better lines on some drivers here over other spots. That is true with the main benefactor being Ryan Blaney, who is +1400 in most other spots. I'm very okay taking the discount here.

Blaney already has a pair of wins on 550-horsepower tracks this year, and both came in races where Larson was competing for the win. He passed Larson on a long green-flag run at the end of the first Atlanta race, and he used a late-race restart to snag a win in Michigan when he didn't have the fastest car.

Outside of the Atlanta win, Blaney does have two other top-fives on 1.5-mile tracks, one of which came in the first Vegas race this year. It's one of 4 top-5s he has at the track in 10 career races, and he has had a top-7 average running position 5 times.

My simulations have Blaney winning 8.0% of the time, a healthy increase from his implied odds of 5.6%. If you're betting at FanDuel, Blaney's the best outright value on the board.

Tyler Reddick to Win (+5500)

My win simulations don't typically show value in longshots, especially this deep in the season when we know who will have speed. The one exception is Tyler Reddick at +5500.

Reddick is no longer in the playoffs, which does put him in a bind as playoff drivers tend to feast this time of year. But Reddick's out due to his performance at the 750-horsepower tracks; Vegas is a different beast in the 550 package.

In 6 races at 1.5-mile tracks, Reddick has 4 top-10 finishes, including a runner-up in Homestead. Homestead is a heavy tire falloff track, which does make it different from Vegas, but both spots allow you to run multiple grooves. That's where Reddick is most dangerous.

Thanks to his strong runs in Homestead, Kansas, Charlotte, and Atlanta, I've got Reddick winning 2.8% of the time, up from his implied odds of 1.8%. Reddick starts 13th, the highest of any driver no longer in the playoffs, so if anybody is going to buck that trend, it could very well be him.

William Byron to Win Group Two (+290) and Beat Joey Logano (-112)

These two bets are correlated because both involve buying into William Byron while fading Joey Logano. Looking at what these drivers have done in the 550-horsepower package tells us why we'd want to do this.

Across six races at 1.5-mile tracks, Byron has as many wins as Logano has top-10 finishes. Byron has five top-10s compared to just one for Logano. Byron's aggregate average running position across the six races is 7.2, second in the series behind just Larson; Logano is all the way down at 13.5.

That's why we want the head-to-head here, and it's likely the best bet across all markets this week. Byron's speed on the 1.5-mile tracks is also why we can bet him to win the group.

Here's each driver's aggregate average running position across the 1.5-mile tracks paired with their odds to win group two.

Martin Truex Jr. is the one guy I'd really worry about here. Logano has struggled in this package, and Brad Keselowski is on his way out the door at Penske Racing, which makes him tough to back.

Head-to-head, Byron and Truex have split the six races at 1.5-mile tracks with each finishing ahead of the other three times. But with Byron's odds at +290 and Truex's at +195, there's good value in backing the youngster this weekend.