Las Vegas Odds Being Influenced By LeBron's Decision
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Basketball fans across the globe have been captivated by all the conjecture regarding where LeBron James will decide to play next season.
James had a face-to-face meeting with Pat Riley of the Miami Heat on Wednesday and will not meet with any other teams before making his ultimate decision.
Just because everyone has to sit and wait to find out where James ends up, that certainly doesn't stop people from having an opinion on what they think LeBron will do when that decision becomes known.
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The speculation on where James will go stretches out to Las Vegas where people are making bets on what team LeBron will end up with.
There are several betting outlets giving odds on James' ultimate destination. Averaged out into probabilities, Miami is still going off as the most likely landing place for James at almost 50-percent.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are next at just under 16-percent, followed by the Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets at around 10-percent. When it comes to looking at the facts and disregarding all the theory's and unnamed sources that seem to be wrong more than not, Vegas betting lines do a great job at showing where the smart money should go.
Granted, there's always a chance that a longshot will come through but Las Vegas sports books are in the business of making money and business has been good for a long time.
Another interesting bet has been for who will win the 2015 NBA Finals. The favorite to win has been the Heat (5-2 at the MGM in Vegas) but the most intriguing odds have been surrounding the Cavaliers.
According to ESPN, there have been more bets placed on the Cavs to win the 2015 NBA title than on any other team. Before free-agency began Cleveland was going off at 60-1, a normal number for a team that hasn't made the playoffs in four years and has no signs of any major improvements.
That all changed when reports began to surface about LeBron's possible interest in leaving the Heat and returning to Cleveland.
Once that possibility was out there, the influx of bets on the Cavs to win were enough to cut their odds in half from 60-1 to 30-1 in a short amount of time. Currently, Cleveland is down to 10-1 the MGM.
There are some sports books that are not even taking any bets until after some of the bigger names in free agency (like James and Carmelo Anthony) have decided where they want to play next season.
Thankfully, the time to find out where players will be signing is getting closer by the day.
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