Don’t Bet On The Daytona 500 Being Subtle This Year

As the motorsport world awaits the return of Formula One under Liberty Media, with the mournful air of those that have found online India poker game site management executives don't respond well to complaining emails, perhaps a quick glance across the Atlantic at one of the biggest NASCAR races on the calendar will show us the future of the posh-boy's go-kart club under American rule and, if not, you can always bet on the Daytona 500 to provide a stunning spectacle of high speed hi-jinks.

The Daytona 500

• Asphalt surface
• 4 Turns
• 2.5 mile/lap
• 500 mile total
• Avg 140-160mph

Those in Europe that like to bet on sports in the US at Bet365 and sites of that ilk may tend to stick to the old favorites. Perhaps they pick a team in the baseball World Series, chose a side in the Super Bowl, or try and select a winner in some of the larger horse races like the Kentucky Derby or Belmont Stakes. A bet on the Daytona 500 in NASCAR, perhaps lacking a recognizable comparison. Baseball is just rounders, American football just rugby with steroids, and horses always run. But NASCAR? Um...no.

Oh sure there's the 24 Hours Of Le Mans, but you can't really compare blasting through the French countryside in the dark in a car so modified it could pass the Turing Test with endlessly looping an oval circuit in a car so simple the cast of Top Gear (or the Grand Tour) could build one before the next commercial break. Sure, you can bet on the Daytona 500 to be a spectacle, an extravaganza, a superb show, but in the global motorsport family NASCAR is still the embarrassingly blunt, loud teenager.

Who Will Win NASCAR's Harley J Earl Trophy This Year?

A spectator sport that happens to involve cars, in the same way that when one is abroad McDonald's is a relatively clean toilet that happens to sell burgers, NASCAR has distilled the more base desires of a motorsport audience into a neatly packaged experience that squeezes it all down into that all encompassing oval, the audience up close and personal with the pits, the straights and those all important accidents, and you can bet on the Daytona 500 to have its fair share of those this year.


One can also bet on the Daytona 500 to be quite a well attended event this year, although why one could possibly think a cornerstone of redneck culture might be more popular now than say just a couple of years ago I leave to your own analytical abilities, and instead will turn our attention to the drivers that are worth skirting US gambling laws for to back at Bet365. There's a great field with some nice odds, especially when you remember just how easy it is for that wall to end a driver's day at the races.

Bet On The DayTona 500 At Bet365 This Weekend

If you're nuts Timmy Hill on 250/1 or Ty Dillon & Elliot Sadler at 100/1 might attract you to bet on the Daytona 500 on Bet365, but more realistically things get interesting at the 25/1 mark and the likes of Kurt Busch, with Martin Truex Jr at 18/1 alongside Kyle Larson, right up the chuff of Clint Bowyer on 16/1 and Matt Kenseth on 14/1, although given the top of the field anyone in the US gambling news on Monday will be of these guys may want to go lie down in the dark for a while. It's that kind of race.

Daytona 500 Favorites

• Denny Hamlin – 12/1
• Kyle Busch – 12/1
• Chase Elliot – 12/1
• Kevin Harvick – 10/1
• Joey Logano – 8/1
• Brad Keselowski – 6/1
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. – 13/2

Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliot and Kyle Busch all sit at 12/1 which is awfully tempting, but not as attractive as the 11/1 on Jimmie Johnson or 10/1 on Kevin Harvick. Naturally it could be Joey Logano on 8/1 who pulls through, or even Brad Keselowski getting 6/1 on Bet365 right now, however with a two time winner of the event Dale Earnhardt Jr sitting at 13/2 it appears, at least in the bookies eyes, to be his race to lose which may well make a bet on the Daytona 500 worth staying up for this weekend.