World Series Odds: Red Sox-Padres Fall Classic Pays How Much?!
BetMGM is offering World Series "exact matchup" bets
The Boston Red Sox have seen their World Series future odds slashed dramatically since Opening Day.
Most American sportsbooks were offering Boston higher than 50-to-1 while one shop was as high as 75-to-1 on the open market. Fast forward to today and the Westgate SuperBook currently respects the Sox the most -- they're down to 14-to-1 to win the Fall Classic. The best possible number you can find is 22-to-1 at FOX Bet and Golden Nugget.
So that $100 dollars that made you $7,500 only makes you as much as $2,200 right now.
If you're feeling left out, you can still get involved in a deep Red Sox run for a big payout. BetMGM has a betting market for exact World Series matchups. For example, Boston against the Los Angeles Dodgers pays 25-to-1 while the Red Sox are 50-to-1 to face the New York Mets or San Diego Padres.
"I don't know about the Dodgers," one professional bettor told NESN. "They've been bitten by the injury bug quite a bit and fatigue usually weighs on teams that made real deep runs the year before. There's a reason there hasn't been a repeat champion in baseball in two decades. It's extremely difficult to win it all in back-to-back years."
Sure, the Dodgers are the consensus favorite to win the 2021 World Series, but that hasn't changed since Los Angeles defeated the Tampa Bay Rays last October. Bookmakers opened LA in the 2 or 3-to-1 range because they didn't want tons of liability to build. And there's absolutely no need to deal great odds on a team that everybody will bet anyway.
I'm going to pass on Red Sox-Dodgers (+2500) because the Dodgers' path to a World Series is extremely tough. It might be easy for some of you to pencil them in as the National League West champions, but that division is going to be a war all the way.
Meanwhile, I can get 50-to-1 on Red Sox-Padres?! That doesn't even make sense. San Diego is a surefire playoff team and they're only 2.5 games behind the Dodgers right now. Baseball Reference gives the Padres a great chance to win 95+ games and superstars like Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado certainly have a flair for the dramatic.
There's also a lot to like about a Yu Darvish-Blake Snell-Joe Musgrove rotation.
The Sox-Dodgers and Sox-Padres matchups should be a lot closer in price because the math tells you that Los Angeles and San Diego have extremely similar odds to win the pennant. So there's absolutely no reason the former is 25-to-1 and the latter is 50-to-1.
And count me out on the Mets because they're the Mets.
It may seem a little premature to discuss exact World Series odds in mid-to-late June, but bookmakers will continue to adjust these prices accordingly. So it's never too early to shop around. If the Red Sox and Padres are sitting atop their respective divisions on August 1, there's no way the market will be 50-to-1.
Always make the right bet at the right price.
