Each installment of Isaiah’s Methods & Opinions (IMO) is brought to you by No House Advantage, a cutting-edge daily fantasy site that allows users to risk little and win big in over 30 states. Bet VS. THE HOUSE to win up to 21x your money or play in PICK’EM CONTESTS against other users! New players can secure up to a $100 deposit match by registering with No House Advantage today! This week’s column will focus on an introduction to NASCAR betting and a quick breakdown of some drivers to monitor this season, including Ryan Preece.
After a hectic NBA trade deadline and Super Bowl LVII, what will sports bettors have to wager on? Sure, the NBA will heat up, and March Madness is around the corner, but a one-sport world is a boring one. Let’s talk about my favorite alternative: NASCAR. I’ll be here every week for two installments of Isaiah’s Methods & Opinions (IMO)! You can trust me to break down the betting trends and sports news that will give you an edge on the sportsbooks.
No sports bettor can hit every bet, but the key to profitable sports gambling is to develop a successful process — or method — for identifying sharp wagers. It’s the application of sharp opinions to that method that separates the wheat from the chaff in the sports gambling world. If your priors are wrong, you’ll end up sweating more bets than you must.
This column will help bettors develop sharp methods and come to well-informed opinions.
Isaiah’s Methods: Introduction to NASCAR Betting | Sponsored by No House Advantage
While betting on stick-and-ball games can be fun, the narrow range of outcomes usually limits your profit margins. Depending on the sport, three outcomes are possible: win, loss and draw. While prop markets, spreads and totals can spice things up, you’ll rarely find longshot tickets that have positive expected value. The same can’t be said about NASCAR betting.
I started writing for OddsShopper last August, or more than halfway through the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. That didn’t stop me from hitting for several massive payouts. Those who tailed my NASCAR betting columns got a winning 20-1 ticket at Kansas and a 10-1 ticket at Homestead. We even hit a 125-1 ticket at Bristol!
The Cup Series began the year with a promotional race at the LA Coliseum, and we would’ve hit on a 50-1 ticket if not for our driver, Ryan Preece, suffering a late-race mechanical problem. However, OddsShopper Premium Insider Access members still turned a profit with an 8-1 ticket posted there before the race.
So, what makes a NASCAR bet sharp? Asked another way, what factors should you consider when placing your NASCAR wagers? The best bettors find a way to blend several factors, including a driver’s recent form, the quality of a driver’s car, a driver’s historical performance at the track in question, a driver’s performance at similar tracks, and a driver’s performance in pre-race practice and qualifying. NASCAR racing is a team sport, too — even recent pit-stop data matters.
Those aren’t the only factors to consider. Knowing a driver’s background can help immensely. If a driver cut his or her teeth in sports car or open-wheel racing, he or she will have an advantage on road courses. If a driver worked his or her way up on the flat, short tracks of New England, like Ryan Preece, he or she may have an advantage at tracks like New Hampshire, Martinsville and the LA Coliseum.
The enumerated factors vary in importance each weekend. For example, a relatively new track like Gateway has little course history to use, so leaning too heavily on it won’t help much. Conversely, a historic track like Darlington has plenty of meaningful course history to consider. As mentioned before, sharp bettors find a way to blend data points. Finding a list of comparator tracks, weighing them and evaluating a driver’s overall form across different events there will usually produce winning tickets at places that offer action on NASCAR like No House Advantage.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll break down how to evaluate drivers with an eye to finding sharp NASCAR betting picks. We’ll go over how to identify comparator tracks, how to differentiate equipment, how to use qualifying and practice data and how to spot young drivers in breakout spots — all in hopes of helping you turn a profit with your NASCAR bets this year.
I sincerely believe that no sport is more fun to sweat out than NASCAR.
Isaiah’s Opinions: Top Under-the-Radar Potential Winners
I have already written up my favorite NASCAR Cup Series championship bets and win total props for the 2023 season. While futures markets are fun, they also have a narrower range of outcomes than individual races. Drivers like Preece, Chris Buescher and Erik Jones can pull off massive upsets on any given weekend, but they’re unlikely to parlay that into championship success.
A few drivers stand out as likely high-value plays. Of course, you’ll need to wait for the right track to target them, but these two drivers are all likely to score at least one Cup Series win in the 2023 season — especially with the parity created by the NextGen car. Expect to cash outright tickets on Ryan Preece and Justin Haley this year.
Let’s start with Ryan Preece. This won’t be the first full-time NASCAR Cup Series season for the 32-year-old driver, but it will be the first in truly competitive equipment. He ran a few unsuccessful seasons in backmarker cars for JTG Daugherty Racing after breaking out with a few impressive runs for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series.
After JTG Daugherty shrunk back to a one-car team, Preece found himself without a ride — so he became the reserve driver for Stewart-Haas Racing. Preece competed in races with Stewart-Haas backing across the top three series of NASCAR, along with a limited schedule in the Whelen Modified Tour, as he went “trophy hunting.” Since 2021, Preece has bagged two wins, eight top-5s and 11 top-10s in the Truck Series. He picked up a top-five in the Xfinity Series and three wins in the modifieds as well.
Preece enters the 2023 season with a lot to prove but not much time to prove it. He will need to win this year if he wants to prove that he belongs in the Cup Series, but I expect him to answer the challenge. His success in the lower series at intermediate ovals with lots of tire wear, like Darlington and Nashville, speaks to his talent. Preece has a shot to pull of an upset at those tracks or at a short, flat oval like New Hampshire, Richmond or Martinsville.
Unlike Preece, Justin Haley already has a Cup Series win to his name. But the nature of that win, which came in a rain-shortened race at Daytona in the summer of 2019, may lead some to put an asterisk next to his name. However, Haley had a chance to win last year’s summer race at Daytona, but in a cruel, ironic twist, rain ended his day early.
Haley will return to Kaulig Racing this year in the No. 31 Chevrolet. The team’s other car, the No. 16, will have A.J. Allmendinger behind the wheel full-time. That’s a change from last year, as Allmendinger shared the car with Noah Gragson and Daniel Hemric. Haley should benefit from having a veteran teammate to swap notes with each week.
However, Haley won’t need any veteran guidance to help him win at a superspeedway — a track that allows for drafting. Haley dominated at superspeedways in the Xfinity Series and racked up four wins, five top-5s and nine top-10s across 13 starts. He scored four top-15s in six superspeedway races last year and led nine laps. Now that other drivers know that they can trust Haley in the draft, expect him to stick closer to the front in this year’s superspeedway events. He’ll be a driver to target at tracks like Daytona and Talladega at No House Advantage.
