Oddsmaker: ‘Price is pretty prohibitive’ on Masters betting favorite Scottie Scheffler

He’s too short to bet if you are looking for value, and too good to ignore as a potential winner.

At +400 to win his second green jacket with BetMGM Sportsbook, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is the shortest-priced Masters betting favorite since Tiger Woods was +350 in 2013.

It makes sense. He’s a recent winner at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. He became the first player to ever defend at THE PLAYERS. He was runner-up at the Texas Children’s Houston Open despite missing a bunch of putts, including a rushed tap-in on Friday that would be ultimately consequential.

Furthermore, his Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green number of +2.8 leads the TOUR by miles and is the best coming into the Masters since Woods’ halcyon iron days of +2.8 in 2007 and +2.97 in 2008.

The Texan leads in SG: Approach and SG: Total. He’s also fifth in SG: Around the Green, taking care of everything except putting in his data pile. And perhaps just as importantly, he no longer is losing strokes to the field in SG: Putting (+0.014). He’s 97th in this metric – which is not great, but is not diabolically bad like it’s been at times for him over the last 12 months.

Multiple times over the last 18 months or so Scheffler lost more than a shot a round on the greens to the average, more to the contenders at the top, and still found himself in the mix. In his last three starts, he was +1.087 per round (win), +.0307 per round (win) and +0.121 per round (T2) on the greens and the results followed.

He doesn’t need to putt great – just well – and his ball-striking will dominate the rest.

But all that aside… are we really betting a player to win a major tournament at just +400 with 72 holes yet to play?!

I can’t in good conscience suggest that is a value proposition. And neither does Director of Race & Sportsbook at The Borgata (a BetMGM property in New Jersey) Thomas Gable.

“Scheffler has had a good run of late and the putter has started to come alive which has always been his hang-up… and we all know he could be extremely dominant if he was consistent with it,” Gable said when explaining Scheffler’s move from +900 at market open to his current price today.

“Recent form suggests it's starting to come along and that's why you have really seen those odds drop. Right now, if you posted him up at 12- or 13-to-1, it would just be a huge influx of money coming in. But at +400 you’re not really going to get hurt too much as a book. The price is pretty prohibitive at this point to bet on him in the outright market.”

Indeed, many people have already bet on Scheffler at BetMGM. He is pulling an imposing 18.7% of the handle and 8.1% of all tickets as of Monday. But Gable says the most recent money, since Scheffler dropped to lower odds, has come from casual bettors – not the sharps.

The regular bettors have bet Masters outrights since it opened almost a year ago, trying to find value ahead of form surges. Scheffler is so dominant a favorite that BetMGM has a “without Scheffler” win market, headlined by career Grand Slam chaser Rory McIlroy at +900. They also have a Scheffler (+400) vs. the rest of the field (-700) market.

Recall that Scheffler’s price has taken a precipitous dip in recent months: He was still trading at +850 at BetMGM in early March before snagging the first of two straight wins at Bay Hill. Fast forward a little more than a month, and that price has been more than cut in half.

“We are still seeing people taking a shot on him at his current price. The casual bettors who like to pick two or three guys… they'll still drop something on him just because they think of how he's playing now and know he’s a contender,” Gable adds.

“The more serious betters are totally staying away from him at this point due to the price. You can absolutely say that the majority of the money is public money rather than sharp money at this point when it comes to the outright market. We expect to see some first-round leader action (Scheffler had 18.8% of the first-round leader handle and 15.9% of tickets Tuesday morning) and I'm curious to see how many people take a shot at him in the tournament and round-by-round matchups.”

It was a similar sentiment over at DraftKings, where Director of Race & Sports Operations Johnny Avello admitted that none of the abundance of money still coming in for Scheffler in the outright and place markets was from sharp bettors.

Scheffler holds 15% of the handle and 12% of tickets in the outright market and leads handle and tickets in Top 5 and Top 20 markets while running second in the Top 10 market at DraftKings.

“There is no value in there for a sharp person to bet him, so it is very clearly public money coming at the moment,” Avello admits. “He is short in all the place markets, there is really no great price to get him at. He’s even -155 in a match-up over Rory… it’s hard to find value anywhere on Scheffler.

“The Masters market has been up for a long time so there was opportunity to take him at a higher price and he was bet a little through that six-month period but even though he’s taking in the highest percentage, we are not in that bad a shape on him because his odds were never really that high and have come in as his form improved.

“My advice - If people are interested in betting Scottie, is to wait and bet him in play,” Avello added. “We expect to see a lot of in-play betting in this tournament – it will be huge – and maybe that’s the chance to get him at a higher price. The opportunities for value will come there.”

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