2019 NBA Finals odds: What will be the exact series result between Warriors and Raptors?

The NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors don’t start until Thursday but the action has been going on since the final seconds ticked down in the Eastern Conference Finals and the match-up was set.

Here we discuss the odds to win the series and exact outcome of the 2019 NBA Finals.

Series odds

At the end of any major sporting event whose outcome determines the teams playing for the championship, you can bet that the Westgate Superbook and Jeff Sherman will be posting odds for said championship shortly thereafter.

Warriors opened as almost three to one favorites to win the series, and it was later bet up to require a bettor to wager more than three-hundred dollars to win a hundred:

The current odds for the Warriors to win are between -275 and -310, and +240 and +250 for the Raptors, depending on the sportsbook.

Even if you expect the Warriors to win the series, we don’t see a lot of value and generally prefer to avoid laying that much juice on any wager.

All the value for betting on the odds to win the series lay with the Toronto Raptors, but even a ticket that pays two and a half to one right now doesn’t seem tantalizing enough of a payout relative to Toronto’s chances to win the series.

Exact result odds

We have no reservations acknowledging that betting on the exact series results is a degenerate wager, usually one reserved for only tiny amounts at very good odds.

While we never have and don’t plan on betting the exact series outcome odds, we find them interesting because they give us a window into how sportsbooks see the series playing out.

Based on the least value on the Warriors winning in six games, the sportsbook sees this outcome as the most likely out of all of these, while a Warriors’ sweep or winning in seven games are tied for the least likely outcomes should the Warriors win.

In contrast, the sportsbook expects any Raptors’ series win to most likely to occur in seven games and a Raptors’ sweep to be the least likely outcome of all.

Contrast this year’s odds of exact result in games to last year’s:

In 2018 the sportsbooks gave the most likely outcome and worst odds to the Warriors sweeping and unbelievable odds and virtually zero chance of winning to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and that ended up being exactly what happened.

While nothing is ever given or taken for granted, maybe these guys know what they’re talking about? If you’re a Warriors fan you hope they are right again.