What a whirlwind 12 hours.
Jabari Smith Jr. had been as long as -600 to go No. 1 overall in the NBA Draft heading into Thursday morning. Then right after midnight struck, his odds started to belly up.
Betting action pushed Paolo Banchero's No. 1 pick odds from +300 to -200 when the dust settled just a few hours later.
By 8 a.m. ET Thursday, Banchero was the odds-on favorite at most sportsbooks, and perhaps for good reason.
By 8:41 a.m. ET, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the top three picks in the NBA Draft were settling in.
As team boards finalize today, the 1-2-3 of the NBA Draft is increasingly firm, per sources: Jabari Smith to Orlando, Chet Holmgren to Oklahoma City and Paolo Banchero to Houston.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 23, 2022
Swiftly, every book took down its odds. Many still haven't reposted their No. 1 to No. 3 markets, including BetMGM. The ones that have slot Smith as long as -400 to go first overall, although even that's ever changing.
(Keep up-to-date with the most recent odds here.)
Bad news for some sportsbooks: Smith to go No. 1 had been by far their biggest liability.
Great news for others: Banchero had been their biggest liability.
NBA Draft Betting Liabilities
At BetMGM, Smith has 70.7% of the total money while Holmgren is actually second with 15.7% of the loot.
Banchero comes in third with 12% of the handle.
Meanwhile, at PointsBet the Thursday morning steam got the better of their pricing. Banchero became their biggest liability in the process, a PointsBet representative told Action Network.
That's despite the fact that Smith as the biggest handle at 74%. Banchero is in second at 16%, but many of those tickets have +300 to +1600 value.
So, had the Banchero late night steam been accurate, sportsbooks like BetMGM would make out like bandits.
Others like PointsBet would've had bad days at the office.
As it stands, it appears it was all a smokescreen, but who knows with this draft?
Smith's odds rocketed to -6000 at DraftKings following Woj's tweet, but they've steadily declined since.
DraftKings now prices Smith at -380.
FanDuel, meanwhile, is operating at a -260 clip. That's down from -10000 just a few hours ago.
Still, Smith's odds to go No. 1 were a consensus +150 at around 8 a.m. today. That implies odds of roughly 40%.
His current odds of about -300 imply a 75% chance that he'll go No. 1.
