Kyle Larson is once more favored at PointsBet SportsBook to win Sunday’s Cup race at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN) on the heels of back-to-back victories.
Last week, Larson opened with odds of +360. After a dominant win in Texas, his line was reduced to +235. Texas was his eighth win of the season and third on a 1.5-mile track. No other driver in the field has more than one win on this course type.
One way to view American odds is to move the decimal point two positions to the left. That will let a bettor know what they will make on a $1 bet. The return on investment for +235 odds is $2.35. For bettors more comfortable with fractional odds, a line of +300 is the same as 3/1.
Larson leads the championship odds with a line of +150. His closest competitor, Denny Hamlin, shows a line that is three times as long at +450.
Hamlin also is ranked second for the Kansas race with odds of +700. Despite sustaining damage in a late-race accident at Texas, Hamlin finished 11th. That gives him a current streak of 12 top-15s. Two of these races ended in wins. Hamlin won in the first of two Kansas races last year and at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to kick off the second round of the playoffs.
Kyle Busch is listed third this week. He entered Texas with a streak of six top fives at 1.5-mile tracks but had a difficult time finding a consistent balance on his Toyota. He finished eighth, which was only the third time he’s been outside the top five in his last 11 attempts on 1.5-mile tracks. Busch is the most recent Kansas winner from this spring when he sported +1100 odds.
Ranked fourth, Chase Elliott overcame a tire problem in Stage 2 at Texas to finish seventh. That was his seventh consecutive top 10 on this track type. Elliott has one Kansas win, which came during the 2018 playoffs. In 2019, he finished second in that race.
Last week, Martin Truex Jr. was ranked fifth with odds of +900. He remains the fifth-ranked driver at Kansas, but his odds are slightly longer at +1000. Truex swept Victory Lane on this track in 2017 and in seven races since, he has been outside the top 10 only once. He finished sixth in May.
Last week’s second-place finisher, William Byron, is just outside the top five this week with +1100 odds. Byron won the first 1.5-mile of this season at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but in six races on the course type in between those strong runs, he earned only one other top five.
Christopher Bell finished third at Texas, which tied his best finish on a 1.5-mile track. His other third-place finish came in that same race last fall, but those are his only top-fives on this track type. Bell is listed at +3500.
Tyler Reddick challenged for the win last week until the final laps. If he gets his first career Cup win this week, that will be worth +3000.
PointsBet is our Official Sports Betting Partner, and we may receive compensation if you place a bet on PointsBet for the first time after clicking our links.
Dan Beaver handicaps NASCAR races for NBC Sports Edge.