World Series Odds: How markets are moving as playoff race heats up

Booking Major League Baseball future bets can be quite the balancing act during the final week of the regular season.

As teams jockey for position or for an actual berth in the postseason, bettors search for betting value on teams they believe can potentially make a run towards a pennant or World Series title.

“I like the Blue Jays if they get in!” your buddy will proclaim.

When four teams are fighting for two American League Wild Card spots over the final days, the number-crunching gets even more hectic.

“We’ve only got a handful of games left for every team,” Circa Sports sportsbook manager Chris Bennett told me. “If all the playoff teams were decided at this point, I would probably be booking the World Series and the pennants at a little bit lower theoretical hold percentage than I am currently. I need to build in a little bit of a push-in because of that uncertainty as there are more than 10 teams that could make the playoffs right now. So that’s part of what I do to protect myself.”

“This late in the season, I have to pay attention as the games are going on. I’m looking at scores on my phone or on the computer at home. So if the Blue Jays look like they’re going to beat the Yankees tonight, I might want to make a move before the game even goes final to get ahead.”

The checks and balances don’t stop until the field is all but finalized.

Top 10 teams most likely to win World Series, per FOX Bet odds*:
Dodgers: +320 (bet $10 to win $42 total)
Astros: +475 (bet $10 to win $57.50 total)
Rays: +600 (bet $10 to win $70 total)
Giants: +650 (bet $10 to win $75 total)
White Sox: +800 (bet $10 to win $90 total)
Brewers: +850 (bet $10 to win $95 total)
Yankees: +1200 (bet $10 to win $130 total)
Braves: +1400 (bet $10 to win $150 total)
Cardinals: +2200 (bet $10 to win $230 total)
Red Sox +2200 (Bet $10 to win $230 total)

*Odds as of 9/30/2021 at 5 p.m. ET

“When it gets down to Saturday or Sunday, and a team is right on the brink of elimination, I’ll just have odds on both teams as if they both had won so that it doesn’t really matter,” Bennett explained.

“It’s a balancing act. I would hate to be operating a future book where I didn’t feel good about the odds we’re offering or feeling like not we’re very competitive in the market. It’s definitely a challenge.”

Shifting future numbers day-to-day is just a small slice of a large pie. Most sportsbooks have future liabilities that have built up for weeks or months, and no liability is created equal. It all depends on the stances a baseball bookmaker like Bennett took on a certain team at a given time.

Prices are almost always different at every shop, after all. One sportsbook could be rooting against the Yankees to win the World Series, while another could be crying poor if a team like the Brewers wins it all because of an avalanche of money written in the early months. It all depends.

“The Giants are the worst outcome for us in the World Series market, but the Cardinals have gotten pretty bad, too,”…