NASCAR Betting Strategy

A dive into the key concepts necessary for effective NASCAR betting strategies.

If you’re familiar with how to bet on NASCAR, maybe you’re curious about how to cook up a profitable NASCAR betting strategy. There are a number of ways to originate your NASCAR bets, so we’ll go through a handful of my favorite methods.

My golden rule for NASCAR betting (and all betting in general) is simple: You should only place a bet when you can spot a meaningful edge (read: advantage over the sportsbooks) on a betting market you understand. If you have questions about NASCAR betting markets, click here.

In this article, we’ll cover how you can spot an edge when betting on NASCAR. Generally, there are two means to this end: market- and projection-based approaches. I talk more about those here, but I’ll begin with a quick recap.

Projection-Based NASCAR Betting Strategy

To find a projection-based edge, the odds of your projected outcome must be higher than the odds that a sportsbook is charging for such an outcome. In other words, you need to think a driver is likelier to win than the market does.

You can calculate projection-based edge by subtracting the book’s odds from your projections. Let’s say you think Noah Gragson has a 50% chance to win at Darlington while Sportsbook A lists him at -200 (66.7%) while Sportsbook B lists him at +200 (33.3%).

With his odds at 50% (you can read more about win probability here), Gragson is likely to win this race, but you wouldn’t want to bet on him at Sportsbook A—your edge is a dreadful -16.7%. You would want to bet on him at Sportsbook B because your edge comes out to +16.7%.

Projection-Based Method Demonstration

Market-Based NASCAR Betting Strategy

If you don’t know anything (or much) about NASCAR, you can use the odds from across the market to try and spot a market-based edge. Said another way, to find a market-based edge, the market must think a driver is likelier to win than an individual sportsbook does.

What do I mean by “the market”? Other sportsbooks.

Let’s revisit the Gragson example. In addition to Sportsbook A and B, Sportsbook C lists him at -150 (60%) and Sportsbook D lists him at -300 (75%). The market average would come out to -142.5 (58.8%), giving us an edge of 25.5% at Sportsbook A—and no edge (or a negative edge) at every other book.

Market-Based Method Demonstration

Sometimes, market-based methods can help us find arbitrage opportunities. Since most NASCAR betting markets have more than two possible outcomes, this is difficult, but matchup/head-to-head markets are an exception. If you spot an edge on both sides of the same market, that’s literal free money.

Calculating Projections for NASCAR Betting

While market-based betting can be quite profitable (just check out the results from sites like OddsShopper and OddsJam), it’s usually far more useful for low-hold, two-outcome markets. When there are 36 (or even 40) possible winners in the field, and your edge for each of them is tight, hold (the amount each book pockets from a given market) will prove to be a major drag.

Aside from matchup/head-to-head markets, where I recommend employing a market-based approach (either exclusively or alongside a projections-based one), projection-based approaches are generally the best NASCAR betting strategy.

So, how do you make NASCAR projections? You could trust your gut, but that probably won’t be profitable. Sites like Stokastic cook up excellent projections by running thousands of simulations for NASCAR DFS, which could be helpful—but will cost you a pretty penny.

Instead, I advise considering a driver’s (or drivers’) statistical performance at similar tracks relative to comparator equipment. All of these raise subsequent questions. These include: which NASCAR stats are the most important, which tracks are most similar to others, and which driver’s equipment is most similar to another’s.

Note that this list of variables isn’t exclusive. Others, like pit crew efficiency, starting position, and crew chief quality, matter, especially in specific situations or at specific events. The weather (and sunlight) is also a pivotal variable that has decided many a race—but using it to find a meaningful edge is quite difficult pre-race.

Driver Statistics | NASCAR Betting Strategy

There are a plethora of driver statistics to consider when betting on NASCAR. Finishing position is a good indicator of driver performance, but, on its own, we don’t get much insight into the race as a whole, only the last few laps.

Instead, I recommend using statistics that factor in a driver’s performance throughout a full race. These include driver rating, laps led, and average green flag speed.

The fastest driver won’t win every race (or lead every lap), but if you can successfully predict who will roll off fastest, you’ll have a huge leg up on the betting markets.

Similar Tracks | NASCAR Betting Strategy

Although you might think all a NASCAR driver needs to do is turn left, the left turns they take at each track (and the right turns they make at some tracks) can vary significantly, whether by angle, banking degree, and surface. When looking for similar tracks, those are the crucial variables to consider.

For instance, Darlington is a 1.3-mile oval while Atlanta is a 1.5-mile oval. You may expect them to race similarly, but they don’t. Darlington is egg-shaped (giving each corner a unique character) while Atlanta is a quad-oval. Darlington’s rough surface chews through tires while Atlanta’s smooth surface enables higher-speed racing.

In conjunction with its steep banking, Atlanta races more similarly to 2-mile Daytona, which forced NASCAR to start using the superspeedway package at the venue. Darlington, which features similarly steep banking but slower speeds, doesn’t require such an adjustment.

Comparator Equipment | NASCAR Betting Strategy

Finally, you must recognize that NASCAR is not just a game of driver quality. The cars themselves can play a major role in the outcome. Just look at the career trajectory of Alex Bowman as an example.

In 2016, Alex Bowman started 35 races for the underfunded Tommy Baldwin Racing. He finished the year with 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 0 top 10s, 3 top 20s, and an average finish of 31.6. In 2019, his second full-time season with powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports, he recorded 1 win, 7 top 5s, 12 top 10s, 27 top-20s, and an average finish of 14.4.

This path raises several questions. First, was it Bowman himself who improved, or was it his team upgrade that explains his improvement? Second, why would a team like Hendrick Motorsports hire a driver who posted Bowman’s stats in 2016?

I’ve made my answer to the first question clear already: equipment matters. But to answer the second, we need to think about comparator equipment. Bowman may have struggled in 2016, but when compared to Michael Annett at adjacently positioned HScott Motorsports, he looks much better. Annett posted 0 wins, 0 top 5s, 0 top 10s, 1 top 20, and an average finish of 32.7.

When evaluating a driver through comparing equipment, start by looking at how they perform relative to their teammates. Then, advance to teams you think of as being in the same or similar “tier”—or just teams that use the same engine or manufacturer.

Applying Your Projections to Build Winning Cards

At the end of the day, your projections will only have value if they generate money. Just because you project an outcome at, say, 50% odds, that doesn’t mean it actually has 50% odds. Further, even if it does have 50% odds, you’re probably only getting 5-6% of edge.

Betting the farm on one wager with that much edge may work once, but it won’t be a viable strategy over the long run. The two “Ds” are key to profitable NASCAR betting: discipline and diversification.

Discipline

You shouldn’t bet it all on one line. So, how much should you bet—and how should you calculate that number?

Mathematically, the most efficient way to do so is via the Kelly criterion.

In plain English, you can use Kelly to determine the percentage of your bankroll to wager based on the amount of edge you have. In not-so-plain English, here is the formula itself:

Let BR = the size of your bankroll,

P = the probability your bet wins (based on your projections),

B = the share of BR gained with a win (e.g. 1 if odds are +100),

W = the size of the bet.

W = (P - (1 - P)/B) * BR

For example, if we project an outcome at 75% but can get +100 odds for it, the Kelly criterion tells us that we should wager 50% of our bankroll on it. To be clear, 25% is a massive edge, so a correspondingly massive wager makes sense.

With that wager, in three out of every four times the race is run, we would secure a 25% return on our total bankroll, but in one of those four times, we would lose 50% of our total bankroll. If you bet on sports, you are going to lose—but you determine how much that is.

Kelly isn’t the only method to determine how much to wager on a bet. Often, both here and on other platforms, you’ll see bettors refer to “units.” Those who know what they’re doing understand this as a shorthand for Kelly, but many (especially those selling 100U plays) do not.

To use units as a shorthand (as we’ll do for my bets), you should operate from the starting point that your bankroll, no matter what it actually is at the moment, consists of 100 units. Said another way, take all the money you’re willing to lose, and divide that number by 100.

In this case, a 1U bet implies 1% of your bankroll, which implies an edge of .5%. A 2U bet at +100 would imply an edge of 1%.

Determining when to bet (and how much) with math may make sports betting seem boring, but that is a lot better than destroying your bankroll after a few races. You can’t get a return on $0.

Diversification

You shouldn’t bet it all on one line—this is true in general and, for best results, specific races as well. If your only action for a race is on a 250-1 longshot that you think should be priced at 50-1, then, should your longshot underperform (as longshots often do), what do you have left to sweat?

Generally, I advise finding a matchup bet or two (maybe a head-to-head/matchup) here and there along with a handful of outrights (and other positional bets). Sometimes, a manufacturer outright may be my only action on a given race, but that almost certainly offers something to sweat until the checkered.