The Minnesota Timberwolves weren’t the only ones celebrating Wednesday night after dispatching the Los Angeles Lakers, 103-96, to finish off a 4-1 series win in Round 1 of the 2025 NBA playoffs. The Lakers were the most-bet NBA team in terms of total wagers and overall liability at multiple sportsbooks, so oddsmakers were thrilled to see them headed home.
At BetMGM, the Lakers had the most wagers (15.6%) of any playoff team to win the championship, along with the third-highest handle (14%). Since Los Angeles had 10-1 odds to win the title entering the postseason (and longer odds before), the liability added up quickly.
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“It was great for us,” Halvor Egeland, a BetMGM trader, told Yahoo Sports regarding the Lakers’ elimination. “They were our biggest liability for the title. It’s always a Catch-22 when it comes to these public teams. The extra handle that comes in is great, but it obviously brings in more risk. We couldn’t write a bet on the Wolves before the series started, either. It was a fantastic result for us.”
To Egeland’s point, 88% of the total dollars wagered on the series price at BetMGM was on the Lakers, along with 69% of bets.
Los Angeles is always a public team and will attract outsized action compared to the overall quality of the team, but futures betting on the Lakers picked up steam after the team acquired superstar Luka Dončić in February. The Lakers were short favorites to win the series against the Timberwolves as well.
The biggest reported wager at BetMGM was a $100,000 bet on the Lakers at 10-1 odds to win it all, which would have won $1 million. Instead, it will go back into the oddsmakers’ coffers, along with the rest of futures tickets on Los Angeles.
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