{"id":5716,"date":"2025-05-01T15:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T15:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/5716\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T15:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T15:12:09","slug":"lakers-early-nba-playoffs-exit-a-blow-to-betting-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/5716\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers&#8217; early NBA playoffs exit a blow to betting public"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">Entering the playoffs, more money had been wagered on the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/lal\/los-angeles-lakers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> to win the Finals than any other team at multiple sportsbooks. That money will be staying with the house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Lakers bowed out of the NBA playoffs Wednesday, losing to the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/min\/minnesota-timberwolves\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> in a five-game, first-round series. They were nearly -200 favorites to beat the Timberwolves and attracted lopsided support from bettors to win the series. Lakers in six games was the most-popular betting option in the series at ESPN BET.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Lakers were a hot bet throughout the season, and the action at sportsbooks increased significantly after the midseason trade for <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3945274\/luka-doncic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Luka Doncic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Lakers&#8217; title odds shortened from 40-1 to 13-1 at some sportsbooks after the blockbuster trade, as action on the revamped roster poured in at sportsbooks. ESPN BET said that more NBA futures bets were placed the day after the Doncic trade (Feb. 2) than any other single day since the season started. Nearly 50% of all the bets were on the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The betting support continued throughout the regular season, and by the time the playoffs tipped off, more than a quarter of the money bet on sportsbook FanDuel&#8217;s odds to win the Finals was on the Lakers. Los Angeles had the second-shortest odds to win the Western Conference, behind the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/okc\/oklahoma-city-thunder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>, and was heavily bet to win the Finals as well. The largest reported Finals bet at BetMGM was on the Lakers, $100,000 at 10-1.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">As of Thursday, the Thunder remained the favorites to win the Finals, listed at +140 at ESPN BET, followed by the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/bos\/boston-celtics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Boston Celtics<\/a> (+195) and <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/cle\/cleveland-cavaliers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> (+500). The Timberwolves were 20-1 to win the Finals.br\/]<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Entering the playoffs, more money had been wagered on the Los Angeles Lakers to win the Finals than&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3089,7,130,150,6,11,67,2801],"class_list":{"0":"post-5716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-3089","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-playoffs","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-news-sports-betting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114433225096798110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}