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By David Purdum, ESPN staff writer
The suggestion was so far-fetched that some bookmakers hesitated to offer odds on it. Would anyone really bet on Bronny James being the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft?
The answer was yes, and it wasn't just recreational gamblers who were doing the betting.
On May 12, after much debate, BetMGM announced that Bronny would be the No. 1 pick as a long shot at 200/1. As the son of current legend LeBron James, Bronny didn't have the playing history typically required to be in the discussion as a top draft candidate. But that didn't matter.
Bets on Bronny began pouring in at BetMGM. Most of the bets were small, but there were hundreds of bets from across the country. In the days before the draft, there were more bets on Bronny to be the top pick at BetMGM than any other player.
“To be honest with you, we debated even putting it out,” BetMGM senior trader Halvor Egeland said in a phone interview with ESPN on draft day. “When we put it out, we definitely didn't expect it to be the most highly bet.”
This is not the first time that American betting fans have latched onto a longshot with an unrealistic story. Every year, betting fans bet on Charles Barkley to win the American Century Championship at odds of over 5,000 to 1. Barkley, who is notoriously bad at golf, finished 105 points behind last year's winner, Stephen Curry, and has never finished higher than 60th in the tournament. Last year, Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes won the national championship at odds of 300 to 1. The one-win Buffaloes entered the 2023 season attracting more championship bets than established favorites such as the Florida State Seminoles and Texas Longhorns. Coach Prime and Colorado missed out on the national championship, finishing last in the Pac-12 with a 4-8 record.
This year, Bronny was the favorite. He averaged 4.8 points per game off the bench as a freshman for the USC Trojans last season. Still, his history, his father's influence in the NBA and the lack of a guaranteed top pick in the draft led to a surprising number of bettors betting on him to be the top pick.
“I think it's more of a bet on LeBron James than a bet on Bronny,” Egeland said, referring to the theory that the team may have drafted Bronny to attract LeBron.
Some bettors on Brony had ulterior motives.
Why did bettors bet on Bronny?
Steve, a 27-year-old avid sports bettor from Chicago, explained why he bet $60 on Bronny James to finish first.
“Every once in a while you get a chance to look especially stupid, and to me, this is the best chance I've seen in a long time to look stupid,” Steve told ESPN about his decision to bet on Bronny. “I don't even think of Bronny as a good college player, and I don't think there's any chance he's going to be the No. 1 overall pick.”
Steve bets on player predictions and has been successful enough that sportsbooks have drastically limited the amount he can bet, down to just a few dollars in some places. To trick bookmakers into increasing his betting limits, Steve sometimes tries to “play the fool.” For example, he bet on Colorado to win the U.S. Championship last year and backed Tiger Woods in the most recent major championships. He used the same mentality when betting on Bronny, trying to look as honest as possible.
“I'm limited at all of these bookmakers,” Steve says. “I'm not betting on Bronny to finish first overall. What I'm really betting on is that all of these bookmakers might say, 'Anyone who bets on Bronny must be an idiot,' and give me a better limit. That's the bet I'm making.” Steve wasn't the only one to use betting on Bronny to get higher sportsbook limits. Alex Baker, a former high-level daily fantasy sports player, saw a social media post that there was a lot of movement on Bronny finishing first and decided to bet $20. He posted a screenshot of his bet on X with the tongue-in-cheek comment:
When you want to push the limits a little pic.twitter.com/gDyvvZv2DO
— Alex Baker (@AwesemoDFS) June 21, 2024
Baker bet on X just to have a little fun, but he acknowledged that in the back of his mind he was hoping that sportsbooks might raise their betting limits in response to the public gambling boom. Baker said he tried to bet $100 but was only allowed to bet less than that.
“They were pretty scared to bet on this because when they bet on FanDuel, the bets were limited to $22.50,” Baker told ESPN. “But I won enough on FanDuel that I was willing to give them my $20 back.”
Another seriously sharp bet was a bet that Bronny would be selected by the Los Angeles Lakers at No. 55. The over/under on Bronny's draft position started in the mid-40s and ended at 54.5. Sportsbooks charged a premium on bets that Bronny would be selected after No. 55. More money was bet on the over of Bronny's draft position at BetRivers Sportsbook than any other bet offered on the draft.
Bronny was indeed selected by the Lakers with the 55th pick in the second round, which caused a small loss for some sportsbooks, but it was nothing compared to the loss they would have incurred had he been the No. 1 pick.
Bronny had been the favorite to be the top pick until NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced the start of the draft. Hours before the first round began, BetMGM reported that $500 had been bet on Bronny to be the top pick at 250-to-1 odds. By the time BetMGM closed betting on the No. 1 pick odds, there were more bets on Bronny than on eventual top pick Zachary Lisacher.
Egeland added that BetMGM wouldn't lose much money if Bronny took first place, but “we certainly wouldn't be happy about it.”
“This is our biggest burden in the draft, probably 10 times larger than any other individual selection,” Egeland said.
As of Monday, more people had been bet on Bronny James to win Rookie of the Year at BetMGM than any other player, with his odds at 250-to-1.
