Sportsbooks ‘cringe’ at NFL Draft—but take bets anyway

At noon sharp Tuesday, the sportsbook at the Westgate casino in Las Vegas began allowing bettors, for the first time this offseason, to place wagers on where prospects such as Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward will get picked in the NFL Draft, which begins Thursday.

Bets will fly in. And throughout the afternoon, the bookmakers who set the betting lines, for Westgate and other sportsbooks, will refresh the social media feeds of prominent NFL reporters to see whether any new information, usually a leak from an agent or a GM, requires updating the odds.

Then, at 7 p.m., the bets will come off the board at Westgate—and the bookmakers will exhale.

“It’s the most difficult thing we book,” said Jeff Sherman, the vice president of risk management at Westgate.

The NFL draft is the marquee event of the league’s offseason—and a nightmare for some sportsbooks. The draft is not like a typical sporting event, where the outcome is decided on the field and unknowable beforehand.

The final decisions are subject to the whims of humans—general managers, owners and coaches. And for sportsbooks and bettors alike, the intel that moves the betting lines is essentially all public, delivered constantly on TV and online by NFL reporters. There are no proprietary algorithms or spreadsheets at play here; the house and the players know just about the same things.

“Anytime we book something where the bettors know more than we do, I cringe,” said Jay Kornegay, a retired oddsmaker. “For the draft, we’re just trying to break even.”

Kornegay recalled another information-based event that was difficult for the house: Tom Brady signing in free agency with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a few years ago. Before the signing, several big bets came in on the Buccaneers. Kornegay assumes people knew something the book didn’t.

The same could happen with the draft, nefarious or not.

“A player agent’s sister knows [the player] is going to the Texans, for example,” he said. “It can be innocently done over conversations. They have a get-together. The agent’s sister talks to her boyfriend. He tells a couple of guys. Then it gets into educated hands, and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

To limit the exposure, sportsbooks employ a number of strategies around the draft. Some don’t offer lines until close to the event, and some, such as Westgate, only offer bets for a short period of time. The books also place strict limits on how much can be bet. Sherman said Westgate would cap bets at $500 this year. A DraftKings spokesman said its limits generally would be between $1,000 and $2,000.

Different states have introduced restrictions, too, presumably to avoid scandal. In Nevada, betting is not allowed on the day of the draft. Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Connecticut, Kentucky and Vermont do not allow any wagering on the draft. FanDuel said it is offering draft betting in 17 states.

NFL rules prohibit coaches, staff members and other non-player personnel members from betting on any sports, making it especially risky for a well-paid team employee to wager on a draft pick.

“I can’t imagine anyone in an NFL front office who can be dumb enough to place a bet on their team drafting a player,” said Adam Schefter, ESPN’s top NFL reporter. “That’s like knowingly drinking and driving.”

The NBA draft has shown the power that a reporter wields in these markets—and why oddsmakers must monitor their coverage. (ESPN prohibits reporters from wagering on sports they cover.)

In 2022, then-ESPN insider Adrian Wojnarowski reported the morning of the NBA draft that Jabari Smith Jr. was probably the first pick. The lines swung wildly, only to move again when Wojnarowski reported later in the day that Paolo Banchero was the new favorite. A year later, it was Shams Charania, then of the Athletic and now with ESPN, who reported Scoot Henderson was looking good for the No. 2 pick, only for Brandon Miller to land in that spot. Those who followed Charania’s tip lost money. (An added wrinkle for Charania’s report was that he was a paid contributor for FanDuel.)

Schefter, though, said he is blissfully unaware of any gambling lines. “I’ve never given a single thought to how a report on a prospect would impact the lines of where [he might] or might not go on the draft,” he said. “That’s not my job.”

Ian Rapoport, NFL Network’s top reporter, said he was more cautious about reporting on the draft, regardless of gambling lines, because of the fluidity of the information and the gamesmanship between teams angling to land their top targets.

“In free agency, if a [general manager] says, ‘We are signing this guy,’ I would check with a player and report it,” he explained. “If they tell me they are drafting a guy, I would not report it, and I may not believe it.”

With all the difficulties and quirks of betting on a draft, why do sportsbooks offer it at all? Westgate, for example, has stopped offering the NBA draft altogether.

The NFL, though, is just too popular, even if far less money is bet on the draft than an average NFL game.

“You get the scrutiny of the gaming world if you don’t do it,” Kornegay said. “That we’re cheap, or we’re not a true book, or we’re not being fair to those players who want to bet it. You might not get that customer back, so it’s worth our while to do it.”

The draft, said Chris Grove, partner emeritus and strategic adviser to Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, also offers sportsbooks, particularly the larger ones, the chance to market to potential customers in a way that feels different from traditional gambling.

Grove said he expects there could be more competition for draft wagers by next year because the draft could be viewed by regulators as a predictive market. Websites such as Polymarket and Kalshi are online platforms where people can bet on future events, such as who might win an Oscar or whether and when President Donald Trump will lower tariffs on Mexico.

“The drafts markets feel both attractive to and profitable for prediction market operators,” he said. “The bad news for a sportsbook is you’ve got another segment of deep-pocketed competitors who weren’t eyeing your market before. The good news is if you’re large and have your own tech, you could access [people] that want to do this versus traditional sports betting.”

He added, “Simply by calling it a prediction market could open up new states and new customers.”