Where to Bet on NASCAR, Updated for 2022
There are certain times of the year that one can always look forward to as they bring along their own events. Summer has that smell of fresh cut grass and barbeques. Fall brings the changing leaves and the slight chill in the air.
Right now we’re in that time of year when the people get excited about the smells of hot asphalt and gasoline, the sound of engines screaming in your ear, hillbillies telling you all you need to know about Ford versus Chevy.
You’re damn right we’re talking some NASCAR here!
Gentlemen, start your engines…
The Best Sites, The Best Bonuses
Bovada, always making it toward the top of our “Best Of” lists and with good reason!
NASCAR fans can currently get themselves a $250 Welcome Bonus if they join up and use the code “130347” when making their first deposit. Want even more money? Turn that into a $750 Bonus if you happen to be using bitcoin!
Bovada is currently going strong in the “Futures” department.
BetOnline, sister site of SportsBetting, always a solid choice in any type of gambling one would like to do.
Joining up over at BetOnline can currently get the new player a Welcome Bonus of up to $1000 if they use the code BOL1000! Returning players, don’t forget the code LIFEBONUS to ALWAYS get a 25% Reload Bonus!
BetOnline is currently going strong in the “Day Of” department.
As mentioned, the sister site of BetOnline. It’s safe to say that if you like one, you’ll like the other. The smart player will join both to take advantage of the promos of both sites!
Still on the fence? You can join either of the two sites and take advantage of a Mobile Betting $50 Free Play just to try them out!
SportsBetting is currently strong in the “Day Of” Department.
MyBookie may not be the oldest gambling site you’ll find, but they’re not the new kid on the block either. For the time they’ve been around they have proven time and again that they’re here to stay and we’re thankful!
New players can take advantage of a $1000 Welcome Bonus as well as a $10 Casino Chip to go and check out that side of the site.
MyBookie is currently coming in hot in the “Odds to Win” category.
Everygame are some industry veterans over here, what with having been in the business for well over 20 years now. That’s like 180 in Internet years!
New players can take advantage of a $20 Free Bet just to try them out and see what the big deal is or they can also peruse through the multiple choices with the “Choose Your Own Sign Up Bonus offer that’s always going on!
Everygame is currently going strong with the “Outright Winner” department.
Nobody should be afraid of BookMaker, although those of you with the “bigger bankrolls” may feel at home here with some incredible reload bonuses for those that can make larger deposits.
Whether you are a returning player or a complete noob to BookMaker, we recommend using bitcoin with them as that’s where you’ll get the most bang for your buck!
Right now BookMaker is going strong in the “Futures” department.
*Side Note* – You do not have to make a deposit, but you must at least join and sign in in order to see the current odds and numbers at BookMaker.
This is I-285 in Atlanta on any Friday afternoon.
The History
If you’ve ever spent any time in your neighborhood waterin’ hole, you’ve already heard someone mention, “you know that’s all modeled after the old bootleggers, right?” and you just kind of nod and go along with it.
You ever stop to wonder, “is that actually true”? Well, we did so we finally just gave up and looked into it. Turns out it’s completely true!
As you may or may not already know, NASCAR stands for the National Association for Stock Car auto Racing. Now these “stock cars” had their own beginnings in bootlegging during the prohibition era. Drivers would want to use these smaller, quicker vehicles to deliver booze and evade the police. Even once those dark times passed and prohibition wasn’t a thing anymore, the people had acquired a taste for straight up “moonshine” so the need for these cars and these drivers kept up with the times in order for the guys in charge could avoid paying taxes on their operations.
But we’re getting completely ahead of ourselves here!
The 1920’s
For just a moment we need to go back to the 1920’s. During this time Belgium and France were the locations that were setting land speed records left and right. At a point, Daytona entered in as one of these places to find the fastest cars around and by 1935 had 15 records set at said location. These records were all set as what was going to soon become the Daytona Beach Race Course where drivers would race on a 4.1 mile raceway that consisted of a 2 mile stretch of beach as the first straightaway and a strip of blacktop beachfront highway as the other. Connecting these two straightaways were just a couple of little sand covered turns at either end and this was the “place to be” for years to come.
The 1930’s
By 1936, that was it. Daytona was the big cheese of where to find these cars and the racing events were getting ready to become a huge thing.
It was on March 8th, 1936 that a group of drivers got together and had one of the first races on the Florida beach with all sorts of competitors going for a scheduled 250 miles. The race saw sports cars, coupes, sedans, you name it. As the race went on, the heavier a car was, the more likely it was going to get bogged down by the beach sand. At the time, Fords were among the lightest of the cars and ended up claiming the top 6 finishes for the race. Almost 30 cars started the race with only 10 surviving the whole ordeal. In the end, driver Milt Marion was declared winner and Bill France placed 5th at the end with officials calling it at 240 miles.
The 1940’s
“Thanks Mr. Government, but we’ll decide whether or not to do some drinkin’ and hollerin'”!
Now the cars were continuing to improve and get better, stronger, and faster. By the end of the 1940’s the need for bootleggers and other “Ne’er-do-wells” was coming to an end, but the cars were still going good and the races occurring often just for pride and (hopefully!) some profit.
For a few years some racing would continue but it was in 1947 when Bill France, (remember him?) saw the need to go ahead and unify all of these races somehow so he announced the foundation of the “National Championship Stock Circuit”, or NCSCC.
France went on to ask the American Automobile Association for some financial backing for this but they declined. After being denied, France went on proceeding with his plan anyway and came up with a set of rules and awards for the NCSCC. He then promised that the winner of the newly upcoming 1947 season would take home $1000 and a trophy. This season would start in January at the Daytona Beach track and end at the Jacksonville track in December.
Over the course of the year 40 almost races took place and at the end all of the competitors were paid as promised. Driver Fonty Flock was declared the ultimate winner having won 7 of the events of the 24 he entered. True to his word, France delivered to Flock $1000 and a trophy as well as almost $3000 in prize money to other drivers that took part throughout the season.
At the end of this first “season”, Bill France started to hold a series of meetings in Daytona. At one particular meeting, the 35 men that represented to NCSCC were called and the first of a group of seminars took place where France would fill in his outline of an organized group of race car drivers. When looking for a name, a mechanic by the name of Red Vogt came up with the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing and NASCAR was truly born.
In this beginning, there were three divisions taking place.
- Modified
- Roadster
- Stock
Well, turns out, the early fans of NASCAR wanted nothing to do with “Roadsters”. They straight up said, “nah, that garbage is for Midwesterners” and the group was disbanded.
The “Modified” category went for a while but is currently operating as the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.
Now the “Stock” category was what the people really wanted to see even though it got a slower start as a whole and was actually put on hold for a while while car manufacturers were unable to keep up with the demand for family sedans quick enough with the post war demand. This luckily came to an end fairly quickly with the first Stock Division debuting in the next year and was able to start off with a 20 mile exhibition in February.
The 1940’s Through the 1960’s
The first “strictly” stock race took place in June of 1949 and was won by driver Jim Roper when driver Glenn Dunaway was kicked off after the discovery of some altered rear springs and for some time went on as “Strictly Stock” races. Over time these rules were relaxed to allow for modifications for drivers safety, followed by performance mods, and finally by the 1960’s, these were built to be “race cars” with the appearance of “strictly stock” bodies.
Notably in 1952, the first NASCAR competition outside of the United States was in Canada where a driver by the name of Buddy Sherman won a 200 lap race on a half mile dirt track in Stamford Park, Ontario.
Moving onto the present, over 100 tracks play host to over 1,500 races every year in 48 US states as well as in Mexico, Canada, and even Europe.
List of Current Series
This is the list of current series that take place throughout the year. Considering that there are multiple races in each series, man, you’ve got a lot of stuff to look over and plenty of events to look forward to pretty much anytime during the season!
- Series Name – Type of Cars Allowed
- Cup Series – Stock
- Xfinity Series – Stock
- Gander RV and Outdoor Truck Series – Pickup Truck
- ARCA Menards Series – Stock
- ARCA Menards Series East/West – Stock
- Whelen Modified Tour – Modified Stock
- Weekly Racing Series – Various
- Pinty’s Series – Late Model
- Peak Mexico Series – Late Model
- FedEx Challenge Series – V6
- Whelen Euro Series – Late Model
- Coca Cola iRacing Series – eRacing
- Heat Pro League – eRacing
- Ignite Series – eRacing
The Drivers to Keep an Eye On
Whoo. That’s a tough one there. We needed to add this section here for the people that may be intentionally be looking for it, but there’s a problem here. You see, NASCAR isn’t like other sports where there is a clear #1 guy, (or gal!) most of the time.
At the time of this writing if one were to Google up “Best Current NASCAR Drivers”, the first three sites to come up list completely different drivers for “who’s the best out there right now”. In fact, the answer to that very question changes depending on what site you choose to believe with the first three results showing Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, and Kevin Harvick all showing up as the best driver right now and all of these results are coming from sites that are totally dedicated to NASCAR.
Knowing that, the best advice we can give when sending you, the reader out into the world of NASCAR gambling is to “never count anybody out”. This is where the time and dedication to your homework are going to come into play, and that’s going to be bringing us to,
A Couple of Things You Should be Paying Extra Attention To
While these are things you should be thinking about with any sport event that you want to gamble on, they’re especially true when talking about a sport where the contestants are zipping around at a couple hundred miles per hour.
- Shape of the Track
This is a quick one here. Many people go into the races thinking that all NASCAR tracks are an oval shape with just a bunch of left turns taking place. Not so! Many tracks take on all kinds of various shapes and may just throw in some rights here and there. Is your favorite driver really good at these oval tracks but kind of drops the ball when it comes to something a tad more, difficult? If so, it may be time to look into a new driver to take the place of your favorite when one of these odd tracks up and show up!
- Weather and Time Conditions
NASCAR is unique from many other types of racing where they just really don’t fool around with weather. For example, if it’s looking like it may rain, that race is absolutely getting cancelled, so weather actually isn’t going to be too much of a factor with NASCAR. However, there are other variables in a NASCAR track such as time of day. Do you normally watch a driver that seems to do better on a nice bright sunny day than he would as it’s getting to be dusk and the electric lights start to come on to light up the track? You would want to be sure that this race should be ending while there’s still plenty of light left in the day.
- Travel or Fatigue
Nobody should be driving while tired, think we can all agree on that. Doesn’t change the fact that if a driver races at one location one day and then is at another location very shortly after, ask yourself, “did he have the time to make the trip nice and safely and get some rest before this next race?”
- The Guys That Are Not Racing
We’re talking the pit crew here, very important guys. Are you able to learn anything about a drivers pit crew? This team of people here are actually very important to pay attention to. The pit stops are where the drivers are going to be stopping for just a few seconds before getting back on the track. Are you able to find out that a driver suddenly has a new crew for whatever reason? They may be someone to be weary of as the new crew learns their places and their jobs.
A Couple of Things You Should NOT be Paying Attention To
- Starting Position, (or lack thereof)
If new to NASCAR you may look at a driver who is toward the back of the pack when the race is going to get going. In a sport like this, that actually doesn’t matter! Well, maybe a little, but not much. If a driver is toward the back of the pack yet has flawless pit stops, good drafting help from his or her teammates, and the gift of avoiding oncoming collisions, they’re naturally going to do better than a driver who may be lacking in these situations.
- Gender
Some may see this as a touchy subject, yet it’s one that should come up anyway. Take the NFL as an example. You throw a female into the position of a left tackle with the Giants going up against the Patriots and she’s just going to be destroyed as men and women are just built differently. In NASCAR however, there are more and more women coming into the sport as gender just doesn’t matter as much as all drivers are put in control of machines that are doing the grunt of the work. Think women can’t drive? Well Shawna Robinson, Hailie Deegan, Manami Kobayashi, and Grace Trotte would all like to have a word with you!
Sorry guys, like it or not the women are here to show us how it’s done!
The Types of Bets That Can be Placed on NASCAR
Now there just aren’t a ton of different types of bets that can be placed, but that’s to be expected from this type of sport. I mean, as much fun and exciting as it is, you’re still ultimately looking at a sport that comes down to, “will they be able to drive until they finish and how quickly can they finish”, right? With that said, these are the types of bets that can be placed at the top sites for NASCAR wagers.
- Outright
This is exactly what you would think it is. You think that John Q. Smith is going to win the race? Put your money where your mouth is and hopefully he comes through for you!
- Winner
Once again this is what you would think it is. This is the same as Outright (see just above), but being called winner at different gambling sites.
- Top Three Finish
This one is like the horses where you don’t think that a horse may necessarily win, but he could place or show. You’d be betting that your chosen driver does in fact finish in the top three places of the race.
- Futures
Under this you’ll probably see odds and numbers for winners of races, but these will end up being races that are taking place sometime in the future.
- Simple Yes/No
As stated in the name, these are very simple bets that just require a Yes or a No. As an example you may see “Will Kyle Busch win the race taking place on the 18th?” and you would simply bet, Yes or No.
- Props
By far the most fun and entertaining of the wagers you’re going to find. These are bets that have direct correlation to the outcome of the race itself, but rather “just for fun” bets. For example, “will the winner of the Xfinity Series be driving a blue car?”, or “who will the winner thank first in their post-race speech?”. You may even find “will the winner of X race be male or female?”
The Best Places to Bet on NASCAR in 2021
Just a quick “recap” of the places that you’ve already learned about!
These are all sites which have not only been tested by us for years now, (literally!) but have all proven themselves time and again with solid customer service. Honesty. Reliability. The best bonuses, and the most important thing to any customer, when you win you will get paid! Not only do we send you off to these sites with the hope that you will in fact find a new home (homes) for your gaming, but keep in mind that we actually use these sites ourselves for our own wagers! You will not find any fly-by-night sites around here!
Good luck with all of your wagers!