Denny Hamlin is the early favorite for Talladega at PointsBet

Denny Hamlin is the favorite at PointsBet SportsBook to win the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, following his win in Las Vegas last week (2 p.m. ET, NBC). Hamlin is the defending champion of this race, having won it last year by beating teammate Erik Jones to the finish line.

On superspeedways, Hamlin has been the favorite in the first three races of 2021, with odds ranging from +675 to +800. With a +850, he has the longest odds on the track type this week. Hamlin started the season with a fifth-place result in the Daytona 500, his sixth top-five finish at Talladega and Daytona International Speedway in a row. His most recent finishes are a 32nd at Talladega and a 13th at Daytona.

Moving the decimal point two positions to the left is one method to look at American odds. This will tell a bettor how much they will win on a $1 bet. For +850 odds, the return on investment is $8.50. A line of +300 is the same as 3/1 for bettors who prefer fractional odds.

No other driver has odds better than 10/1, demonstrating how difficult it is for bettors and handicappers to pick clear favorites on a track with large drafting lines and “Big One” collisions.

Three drivers are listed with chances of +1100.

Ryan Blaney, the winner of the most recent race on this track type, comes into Sunday with momentum after finishing in the top five in his previous two appearances at Bristol Motor Speedway and Las Vegas. In the fall of 2019 and spring of 2020, he won back-to-back Talladega races, but last year’s edition was not kind to him. He came in 25th place. Blaney improved to ninth place in spring.

Joey Logano, Blaney’s Team Penske teammate, is also listed at 11/1. Logano has three victories at this track, the most recent in 2018. He was one of the hottest drivers at Talladega at the time, and the victory came after a four-race top-five streak. His last four attempts there have all finished outside the top ten, with the last three finishing worse than 15th.

In the spring of 2018, Chase Elliott won at Talladega. In the playoffs, his past two fall efforts resulted in an eighth place finish in 2019 and a fifth place finish in 2020. He was involved in an crash this spring and finished 24th.

Brad Keselowski, who won the Talladega race last spring with a line of +1200, rounds out the top five. The PointsBet traders upped the stakes to +1400 this week. On this track, Keselowski has six Cup victories; no other active driver has more than three. His most recent Talladega victory was in 2017, before to this spring’s triumph. He did not finish in the top ten in the six races between his two victories, with an average finish of 22.5.

If Keselowski wins this week, he will move into sole possession of second place on the all-time Talladega winners list. He is currently tied with Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in the championship standings.

This week, another recent Talladega winner faces huge odds. In 2018, Aric Almirola won the checkered flag. That was part of an eight-race top-10 streak on this track, which ended last fall when he retired with crash damage on Lap 57. This weekend, he has odds of +2000.

Kyle Larson’s probability of victory for the seventh time in 2021 are +1600 this week. Since he was listed at +1800 for the spring Talladega race, the points leader has faced the longest odds.

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