PointsBet has paid out all Aaron Judge American League MVP bets after he hit his 56th and 57th home runs on Tuesday night vs. the Red Sox.
Judge had been a consensus -2000 favorite across the market to win his first career MVP. The second-best favorite, Shohei Ohtani, has +700 odds to do so.
The Yankees slugger had 12% of all bets and 27% of the entire market handle to win the award. That means more than a quarter of all the money in PointsBet's AL MVP market has already been cashed.
Judge is now well on pace to match or beat Roger Maris' 51-year, American League home run record of 61.
FanGraphs is now giving Judge a 90.9% chance of hitting 61 or more homers this season. That translates to -1000 odds.
"PointsBet wanted to reward Judge bettors for predicting what we see as one of the most dominant seasons in MLB history … and instead shift the focus to Judge's chase of Maris' American League record of 61 home runs," said Sam Garriock, a trading manager at the sportsbook.
Judge is having a top-50 season of all-time, with an absolutely mind-boggling wRC+ of 206 and a OPS+ of 209. While those one-stop shop metrics aren't perfect, the data is clear — Judge has had a season worth 106% or 109% better than an average player's output.
This isn't the first time PointsBet has cashed a futures bet out early. This week, the sportsbook cashed all Cowboys u11 win total bets after quarterback Dak Prescott was declared out for six to eight weeks.
And earlier this year, the Australian-based book paid out all bets on Nikola Jokic to win NBA MVP a few weeks before that wager was supposed to settle.
