Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! If you are looking for everything there is to know about NASCAR and how to win some money betting the races, you can now breathe a fresh sigh of relief. Fortunately, you either clicked or pressed the magical buttons that landed you on a complete, in-depth guide on NASCAR.
First and foremost, our team of NASCAR experts is going to cover how to attack the betting arena. After giving you the best online sites to place your wagers and talking about the types of bets you can make, we will dive further into the depths that is the sport of NASCAR.
You will find several links to pages describing significant information such as betting strategies and what races you want to keep an eye out for. Before we start delving into all the juicy stuff, our guess is some of you are already avid NASCAR fans and are ready to make some bets. If you are purely just looking for a list of the top online betting sites when it comes to racing, look no further.
Those of you men and women who already have your picks locked and loaded for the next big race, all you have to do is sign up on the sites above. After that, it’s time place your bet and watch the race!
Why These Sites?
That’s a very fair question. Betting your hard-earned money on NASCAR races is not something we take lightly. Unfortunately, there are sites out there that will blindly recommend sites without putting in the necessary efforts to make sure the sites are actually worthwhile.
We have an extensive procedure we go through before endorsing betting sites. The most important factors we consider when ranking sites are the following.
Reliability
This is a must, and it covers multiple areas. Let’s start with the banking options.
Banking Options
It isn’t necessarily how many methods there are available to deposit and withdraw funds, it’s how efficient are they are. Some sites like to be fancy and gloat about having twelve different avenues to deposit money. If ten of them aren’t safe, trustworthy, or quick, then who really cares?
We look at sites that have banking options that are fast and secured. This isn’t something we hope a site has. This is something that is required.
Dependable Customer Service and Software
Just like the process of getting your money on and off the site needs to be smooth and transparent, so does the software and customer service. If you can’t trust the site you are betting races on, then you shouldn’t be betting in the first place.
Having a responsible team of support representatives available to answer questions is vital. Inevitably, issues and problems will arise. Few things are worse than sending an e-mail that may or may not even be read, let alone receive a response.
The software that the site runs on has to be proficient and effective, otherwise, there is just no point in betting on the site whatsoever. We mentioned that few things are worse than not being able to get a hold of a member of the support team; well, trying to bet a game only to have the server crash in the midst of you placing your bet is pretty high on the frustration meter as well.
The good news is we took the time to sift through countless sites and make sure we only listed the ones that checked off the boxes. If anything about a site even smells a bit funny, it simply doesn’t make the cut. Have faith knowing the sites listed above will provide you the optimal betting experience.
Picking the drivers that win the races, that part will still be up to you!
What You Will Find in This Guide
We organized this page in structure so that you can jump directly to whatever peaks your interest. If you solely want to know what types of bets you can make, go straight to that segment. Perhaps you are interested in learning about the Monster Energy NASCAR series and who the greatest drivers of all time are. Whatever it is, feel free to use the table of contents below to find out whatever it is you are looking for.
If you know a lot about NASCAR have little or no experience placing bets online, don’t worry. This guide starts out with some useful links to pages that will get you feeling relaxed and ready to start firing away!
Are You New to Sports Betting
Do you know a lot about NASCAR but lack the faintest idea about how to place wagers on sporting events online? Many of our readers are huge racing fans, but share the same doubts you may have about putting your personal and banking information on the internet and trusting that your bets will be paid out.
The first thing to do is just take a deep breath and relax. Yes, the online sports betting world is a big place with many uncertainties. However, if you go about it the right way, you can find yourself having a ton of fun and winning loads of cash.
Check out our “Getting Started” page before you begin placing wagers. Understanding the basics is the first step to becoming a successful online sports bettor.
Once you have done that, you are ready to learn about the top fundamental tips for first-time bettors. This isn’t information about NASCAR in particular, but rather some underlying guidelines to follow when getting underway betting online.
There is no reason to be in a hurry and start making bets right away. Unless the next big race is starting in the next forty-five minutes, you have plenty of time to get yourself fully prepared to attack the races in a practical way.
There are a lot of common mistakes that sports bettors make, and much of it has to do with being impatient and not being sensible. Click the button below to make sure you aren’t making the same silly mistakes the casual sports fans are making.
Now that you are building a solid foundation for how to approach betting sports online, it is time to understand how to find value in betting odds. We aren’t just simply talking about finding Kyle Busch or Jimmie Johnson at +800 to win the race if they are +750 on the majority of sites. Finding the most optimal lines will be imperative to being successful in the long run, and we will talk about that in our betting strategies section.
Finding value in betting odds is a lot more complex than just finding the best price. There’s some multiplication and division involved, but don’t think you have to be a math major to understand how it works. Checking it out will give you some additional information that will be useful next time you are deciding which bets to make.
The drivers who are the most prepared going into a race are typically the ones with the best chance to perform well. Betting on the sport is no different. Those of you who do your homework and are diligent in your pre-race process will be the ones who are turning a profit on race day!
Thanks to all that introductory information on betting races online, it’s time to dive into NASCAR and talk about why betting on it is such a great opportunity.
Why Bet NASCAR?
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, conveniently known as NASCAR, is the second largest spectator sport in terms of viewers in the United States (second only to the NFL). NASCAR was established in 1948 and the sport has gotten bigger and bigger over time. For example, if you are looking to find a good seat at the Daytona 500, plan accordingly.
In 2017, all of the 100,000 plus tickets were sold out before the morning of the race. While most people think that NASCAR is just one racing series, NASCAR actually refers to the entire business that governs several different auto racing series.
We are going to get into the different series in a dedicated section later on in this guide. What you need to know right off the bat is that due to the popularity of the sport, the action is never far away. Nearly all fifty-two weekends of the calendar year have some sort of NASCAR race taking place — and you know what that means.
Wherever there’s a race, there’s a chance to place some bets and make some money. The days of only picking the driver that will cross the finish line first are long behind us. The bigger the race is, the more bets will be offered. Speaking of those bets, let’s not waste any more time.
You know what NASCAR is and you have a list of the best sites to place your wagers. It’s safe to say you are primed to start learning about the specific types of bets you can make before and during races.
Types of Bets
Most people think that the only way you can bet on NASCAR races is to bet who will win the race. While this is definitely the most popular of bet types, there are a ton of other options that you can bet to try and capitalize on your predictions.
Below, we’ve outlined the most popular bet types to help you get acquainted with the plethora of options that are offered. While brick-and-mortar casinos may lack this much flexibility for you as a bettor, the sites we recommended above will certainly have all of these options and potentially more for the more significant races.
To Win Outright
This is the most popular NASCAR bet, and probably the one you are most familiar with. This is a bet on who will win the race. Think Kyle Busch is going to win the race? Place this bet, and if he comes in first, you win! This is the simplest and most straightforward bet type there is in NASCAR.
It’s perfect for beginners, but that doesn’t mean it has any worse odds or is not utilized by professionals all the time. Typically, you will get paid out better than even on these bet types. The more likely the driver is to win the race, the lower those payout odds will be. Even for the best, you can still expect to get paid out several times your money for a correct bet.
What’s great about this is that it allows you to bet on multiple racers and still make money as long as one of them wins. We will cover this in the Betting Strategies section below.
Fastest Qualifier (Pole Position)
As you can imagine, it is important to NASCAR drivers where they start the race from. If a driver has to start from the back, it is much more challenging to win the race because they have to pass everyone. They’re also at a much higher risk of falling victim to an accident. If you’ve ever watched the race at Talladega in particular, you know how important being out of the way at the front is. For this reason, NASCAR has the drivers qualify before the race to see where they will start.
Depending on the track type and length, NASCAR will have the racers go through either two, three, or four rounds of qualifying where the drivers will compete for the best lap times. The qualifying procedures are covered in full in the Qualifying section below. The important thing to note is that the driver that makes it to the last round and then has the fastest lap time will be awarded the pole position.
Sportsbooks will allow you to bet on which racer will win that pole position. Similar to the outright win bet, you will get paid better than even money on every racer. Again, this allows you to bet on multiple racers and usually still make money as long as one of them wins the pole.
In case you are wondering, it is called the pole position because at most tracks there is a tall vertical pole that lists what place each driver is in, with the first place driver being on the top of the pole.
Podium Finish
In any sport, the podium refers to the top three finishing positions (1st, 2nd, and 3rd). It derives its name from the fact that most sports will have the top three finishers stand on a podium to receive their trophies or medals (think about the Olympics if you’re confused). Most sports betting sites will allow you to bet if a driver will finish in the top three positions. This is known as a podium finish.
This bet is great if you think that a driver will do well, but you aren’t completely sure they have what it takes to win the race outright. Podium finish bets allow you to capitalize on drivers who struggle late in the race and make some money whether they win or just get close.
Fastest Lap
The fastest lap bet is exactly what you are probably thinking it is. You can bet on which driver will have the single fastest lap throughout the entire race. It does not matter if this lap is the first lap, the fiftieth lap, or the last lap. It doesn’t even matter if the driver finishes the race or not.
For example, if you bet on Martin Truex Jr. to have the fastest lap and on lap two he runs the most blazingly fast lap and then gets tapped and spun out by Kyle Busch on lap three, he can still qualify for the fastest lap. As long as no one runs anything faster throughout the rest of the race, you still win your bet.
While these bets are still dependent on what happens in the race, a lot of picking the winner here is understanding the cars and knowing who has the fastest set up that will perform on race day.
Futures
Futures are a popular bet in almost every sport in the world. A futures bet is a wager on who will win something in the distant future. This does not mean betting on a race two months before it happens. What this refers to is betting on something that will take multiple races to decide and won’t be finished for some time.
For example, this could be a bet on who will be the end of season champion. It could also be a bet on who will make the playoffs in NASCAR. Anything that is in the future and will take several races to decide can be considered a futures bet.
As you can imagine, it takes more skill to make a futures bet because with more time more things can go wrong or change. For this reason, futures bets usually pay out pretty well to make up for the difficulty. These bets, like some of the earlier ones we mentioned, are also set up to be profitable even if you bet on multiple drivers to win.
Driver Matchups
Driver matchups are a fun form of betting that you typically only see online. Sportsbooks will choose matchups between two different drivers and allow you to bet on which driver will finish higher than the other. It does not matter if either driver wins the race or finishes on the podium. All that matters is which driver finishes ahead of the other.
For example, they might offer you a bet on Martin Truex Jr. vs. Matt Kenseth. You pick the one that you think will finish higher in the race and that’s it. If you pick Matt Kenseth and he finishes in eighth and Truex gets ninth, you win! If you pick Kenseth and Truex crashes on lap eight and Kenseth crashes on lap nine, you win! It does not matter how they do in relation to any of the other final results or even if they finish the race. All that matters is which of the two does better.
Typically, you will have plenty of different matchups to choose from for each race. The bigger races like the Daytona 500 will usually have a ton of options. These bets are not only fun but can be a great way to make money if you are good at analyzing individual drivers and how they will finish.
Prop Bets
Proposition bets, sometimes referred to as prop bets, encompass all of the other bets that don’t fit into the above categories. These are typically bets that might not have a direct effect on the outcome of the race. For example, you might be able to bet how many cautions there will be at Bristol during the race. You might be able to bet how many lead changes there will be in Phoenix. Sometimes you can even bet on the duration of the National Anthem. The options are endless.
The number of prop bets offered is dependent on how big of a race is taking place. The larger and more attention paid to the race, the more bets the casino operators will make available. It’s just like supply and demand in other businesses. The big races draw incredible amounts of attention. A whole bunch of fans wanting to watch a race equals more people wanting to place bets. The sportsbooks in Vegas and the online casinos will happily oblige to the intense interest from the fans during the larger races and offer a bevy of wagers.
For an example, you will find many more props during the Daytona 500 than you will leading into the Toyota/Save Mart 350 later in the year in Sonoma County, California.
The entertaining part about many of these props is that you don’t have to be completely informed about all the drivers to have fun making bets. In fact, you don’t have to know anything about the race at all! Prop bets can be profitable as long as they are ones that require skill. Betting on the length of the National Anthem is fun, but should not be part of a profitable long-term strategy. As long as you are aware of the point of the prop bets, you should enjoy implementing some of them into your betting routine — especially for the bigger races.
Betting Strategies
You are getting super close to being ready to attack the next race in full form. You are familiar with the top sites to sign up at and know all the fun and exciting ways you can bet on a race. It’s time to start talking about the stuff that’s going to help you put money in your pocket.
Anyone who bets sports understands that you need to put some effort in before just blindly making picks. Being aware of what to consider is the first step, and we have an organized guide waiting for you.
Our team wanted to be fair to you. Trying to squeeze all our tips and advice into a few short paragraphs wouldn’t do it the justice it deserves. Clicking the button above will direct you straight to a page that is nothing but authentic betting strategies. It is aimed to allow you to be more prepared than the average bettor.
The Nature of a NASCAR Race
If you have never watched a race before, good luck trying to figure out what is going on mid-race. Between the pit-stops, restarts, and all the flags, you are going to feel lost if you aren’t familiar with how a race works.
Once again, our team of NASCAR enthusiasts is going to satisfy your needs. The tab above will tell you everything you need to know and more about a race. Maybe your significant other is a big racing fan and you want to impress him or her before your next date.
Reading through our page discussing the complete nature of a NASCAR race will earn you more brownie points than you can imagine!
The Leading NASCAR Series
As you become more acquainted with the sport and its drivers, you will notice the different organizations involved. Just like the major sports across the globe have more than one professional league available, so does NASCAR.
We don’t want you to be confused as to which association or league a racer is driving in. Forget about no longer knowing which races are part of the Monster Energy Cup Series and which ones belong in the Xfinity Series. You don’t have to memorize anything, just click on the button above and bookmark the page.
The Greatest NASCAR Drivers of All Time
A race can only be as exciting and thrilling as the racers make it. NASCAR has had superstar drivers in the past, and they are present in the sport today. They are the ones who have made the sport the national spectacle that it has become.
While a countless number of men and women have gotten behind the steering wheel and attempted to be great, only a small number of them achieved legendary status.
The ones we listed in our catalog of the greatest NASCAR drivers of all time are the ones that are worthy of being celebrated forever. We didn’t gather a list of a bunch of really good drivers. We strictly only included the best drivers of the past and the leaders in the sport today. That’s who made our cut.
Highlights of the Greatest Races in History
We wanted to conclude our “everything NASCAR” page with a dedicated section to some highlights. The greatest and most memorable races that have taken place are the ones that we felt the need to discuss.
Enjoy these briefings and video clips of the most unforgettable races ever. Maybe you want to relive the 1992 Hooter’s 500 — the race that said goodbye to Richard Petty and hello to Jeff Gordon. Perhaps you heard about the 1998 Daytona 500 but aren’t really sure what took place.
Relax and get comfortable. Crack open a beverage and enjoy our guide showcasing the greatest races in NASCAR’s history.
The Conclusion
You must feel like an absolute veteran of the sport by now. We started off by listing the top sites to sign up on if you want to place NASCAR wagers. Those are the sites that will not only cover a great selection of bets, but more importantly, they can be trusted. Our team took the time to weed out the sites that aren’t worth your time; we only recommend sites we would feel confident playing on ourselves.
We wanted to not only explain why betting on NASCAR races is such a great opportunity, but we wanted to dive into the assortment of offerings you will encounter on the top betting sites. Knowing what bets are available is one thing, understanding strategies and how to apply them is another. Luckily for you, we have segments covering it all.
Those of you who are less familiar with NASCAR as a whole should feel much more at ease. Use the pages we created on the nature of how a race works and all the different organizations and leagues associated with NASCAR. This will help you familiarize yourself so next time a race is on, you know what the heck is going on.
Finishing the page with catalogs on the greatest drivers of all time and the most unforgettable races in history was a fun way to help you remember just how talented these drivers are. If watching highlights of Dale Earnhardt finally capturing a Daytona 500 doesn’t get your engine revved up for betting, we don’t know what will.
Enjoy this guide and use it as needed. We figured you landed here because you were hungry for NASCAR information. Our goal was for you to leave this article feeling stuffed!
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