Major League Baseball’s postseason begins Tuesday with four wild-card rounds, beginning the annual playoff sweat on futures markets for sportsbooks.
Key Takeaways
- BetMGM actually needs the Yankees to win it all in 2025.
- Four potentially epic wild-card series begin Tuesday.
- Guardians did a number on some sportsbooks with their historic comeback.
It’s no surprise that a pair of National League division winners are on BetMGM’s radar, but the operator finds itself rooting for one of the most popular teams in all of sports entering the postseason.
"The Dodgers and Brewers are two of the most popular bets to win the World Series,” BetMGM senior trader Halvor Egeland said. “Surprisingly, the Yankees winning it all would be the best outcome for the sportsbook.”
The Dodgers, with odds of +500, are the most-bet team to win the World Series, receiving 11.5% of the tickets and 19.7% of the handle, and Los Angeles is the biggest liability in the NL pennant market. The Brewers (+800), who own 10.3% of the championship market handle, are the operator’s biggest liability remaining.
The Yankees (+850) are getting 6.3% of the money to win the World Series, tied for fifth among all MLB teams.
Wild ones for the ages
The four wild-card series appear epic on paper. The Yankees take on the Red Sox as -175 favorites at BetMGM to win the best-of-three series that will drive betting action as one of the most historic rivalries in any sport. Boston is getting 62% of the bets and 60% of the money to advance.
The Dodgers, listed at -275 to get past the Reds, are taking 90% of the handle in the market. The Cubs are -125 favorites over the Padres in what could be one of the most entertaining wild-card series, but San Diego is getting the majority of tickets and handle.
Detroit is -120 to win a wild-card series and is getting 60% of the money, a week after dropping one to the same Cleveland team that won its division.
In the AL, the Mariners and Blue Jays earned first-round byes, while the Phillies and Brewers get to watch on the NL side, setting highly anticipated betting matchups down the road.
“If the Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies, and Red Sox advance, this could be the most bet MLB playoffs in BetMGM history,” Egeland said.
Game 1 insights
New York is a -135 favorite in Game 1 on Tuesday and is getting just 45% of the bets and 42% of the handle as the majority of bettors back the underdog. In the other AL series, the Guardians are +140 home underdogs against All-Star pitcher Tarik Skubal and the Tigers, who are getting 86% of the handle but just 38% of the tickets in Game 1.
The Dodgers are -201 favorites, up from the opening odds of -190, as the Reds are expectedly getting just 17% of the money. However, the ticket percentage is 50-50. The Cubs are slight -120 Game 1 favorites and have received 65% of the bets and 64% of the handle over the Padres.
They meet again
The Guardians and Tigers have already endured an eventual race. Cleveland trailed Detroit by as many as 15.5 games in the NL Central during the summer and had odds as high as +22,500 to win the division.
However, the Guardians stormed back to overtake the Tigers after last week’s three-game series and claim the crown and earn home-field advantage in their wild-card showdown.
Mike Palm, sportsbook director at Circa Sports, The D, and Golden Gate in Las Vegas, told Covers this week that most of the action on Cleveland came in the final week of the regular season, but the operator did take some 25-1 bets on the Guardians.
It was a bad result for Palm’s sportsbooks as well as BetMGM, which reported that 32.8% of bets (most) and 36.5% of money (most) were on the Guardians. However, at ESPN BET, the Tigers took 55.6% of bets and 50.3% of handle, ahead of the guardians 23.7% of bets and 35.7% of handle.
