Christopher Bell opened the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase with a statement at Darlington Raceway. Oddsmakers apparently took notice.
Bell enters Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway as the betting favorite, sitting at +400 in the latest odds. Ryan Blaney and Denny both follow at +500.
Advertisement
Joey Logano (+850) and defending Cup Series champion Kyle Larson (+900) round out the five shortest prices on the board.
The Enjoy Illinois 300 is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 13, at 7 p.m. ET on USA Network. It is the second race of NASCAR’s 10-race Chase and the fifth Cup Series event held at the 1.25-mile Illinois oval.
2026 NASCAR Gateway Betting Odds
Here are the leading race-winner odds for the Enjoy Illinois 300 as of Sept. 10:
Driver Odds
Odds are subject to change.
Bell’s position atop the board makes sense after what happened at Darlington. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver won the Southern 500 to begin the Chase and climbed to second in the standings, 12 points behind Hamlin. Bell also has three top-10 finishes in four career Cup starts at Gateway, although he has yet to win there.
Advertisement
That leaves an interesting contrast at the very top of the market. Bell owns the momentum, but Hamlin owns both the points lead and the most recent Gateway trophy.
Denny Hamlin Isn’t the Favorite Despite Winning Here Last Year
Hamlin enters Gateway with perhaps the strongest combination of current position and recent track history in the field.
He won the 2025 Cup race at World Wide Technology Raceway and arrives at the track leading the Chase with 2,135 points. Yet his +500 price puts him behind Bell and tied with Blaney.
Blaney, meanwhile, has his own unfinished business at Gateway. He was leading the 2024 race when his No. 12 Ford ran out of fuel on the final lap, opening the door for teammate Austin Cindric to win.
Advertisement
There hasn’t been much repetition in Victory Lane since the Cup Series arrived at Gateway in 2022. The first four races produced four different winners: Logano, Kyle Busch, Cindric and Hamlin. No driver has established anything resembling a stranglehold on the track.
That history helps explain why the market is relatively compressed at the top rather than built around one overwhelming favorite.
Kyle Larson, Joey Logano Among Drivers Chasing the Favorites
The next tier begins with two Cup champions.
Logano sits at +850, an intriguing number given that he won NASCAR’s inaugural Cup race at Gateway in 2022. Larson follows at +900 after another near-miss at Darlington extended his winless streak despite leading a race-high 99 laps.
Advertisement
Briscoe (+1000), Gibbs (+1000) and Reddick (+1200) sit just behind them.
William Byron is further down the board at +1800 following a brutal Chase opener. An engine failure ended his Southern 500 after 319 laps and left him 37th in the final results. He now heads to Gateway needing to recover from an immediate points hit.
The larger picture, though, starts with Bell.
One week after finally breaking through for his first victory of 2026 at Darlington, Bell arrives at Gateway with the sportsbooks putting him in an unfamiliar position for a race that has never produced a repeat Cup winner: everyone else is chasing him.
Read the full article here
