NASCAR Pocono Green 225 Odds & Betting Analysis

While Pocono offers high speeds, it also offers its share of troubles. With three turns inspired by other historic racetracks, find out here who has the best NASCAR Pocono Green 225 odds. Will there be a change at the top of the standings? Find out here.

How They Rank

Coming into the weekend, A.J. Allmendinger sits atop the Xfinity Series standings with 702 points. The usual road-course specialist sits just 16 points ahead of Justin Allgaier in second place. However, in the playoff standings, he currently sits third. There are drivers with both more wins and more top-five finishes this season than Allmendinger, but he’s simply managed to keep his car on the track with zero DNFs.

Justin Allgaier has seen his stock in the Xfinity Series improve, as he has risen from fourth place in the standings in Portland to now within shouting distance of Allgaier for first. The JR Motorsports driver has eight top-five finishes and three wins on the season. In the playoff standings, he’s just one point behind Ty Gibbs.

Gibbs enters in third place in the driver standings but in first in the playoff standings. He has the most wins of any Xfinity driver this season with four but has two DNFs. Gibbs will be tough the rest of the way and could be the one that emerges victorious at the end of the season.

Josh Berry was riding some nice performances before a 31st-place finish at New Hampshire, but he did start as the pole sitter. He’s getting more comfortable as the season goes along. In seven races since his win at Dover Motor Speedway, he’s got a win and three top-five finishes under his belt.

Back before the Portland race, it was Noah Gragson that was chasing the leader but hasn’t had quite the same luck down the stretch which has seen him drop to fifth in the standings. Gragson came out of the gates hot this season, as he didn’t finish outside of the top three in his first four races of the season. He hasn’t been bad by any stretch, but a 38th-place finish at NHMS didn’t help things. Prior to the New Hampshire race, he had finished in the top 10 in six of the previous eight races but hasn’t had the luck he had at the beginning of the season.

Austin Hill is sixth (569 points), Brandon Jones seventh (537 points), Sam Mayer eighth (512 points), Riley Herbst ninth (493 points), and Daniel Hemric 10th (465 points).

Who are the Favorites?

Both Allgaier and Gibbs enter tied atop the odds board for the NASCAR Pocono Green 225 at +500 odds.

Since arriving in the Xfinity Series, Gibbs, grandson of Joe Gibbs, has been looked at as almost a wonderkid. That doesn’t change heading into the NASCAR Xfinity Series Pocono Green 225. He has four wins in 18 races this season and is always in the running, even when he doesn’t win.

In his lone start at Pocono, Gibbs impressed as he often does. He started in 14th, but made his way to sixth by the end of Stage 1 and won Stage 2. He led 11 laps before finishing second.

The one thing Allgaier has on Gibbs and most of the field is experience. He has six starts at Pocono with three top-10 finishes and a pair of top-five finishes, including a second-place finish. Gibbs is a natural talent, while Allgaier is proving to be a diamond in the rough for JR Motorsports. Both being offered at the same price is tough, but you can’t go wrong with an outright bet on either of these two.

Next on the odds board is Cole Custer at +600. We’ve seen drivers come down from the Cup Series to race on the Xfinity level before this season. Tyler Reddick won when came down, at Texas back in May.

Custer has had solid performances at Pocono on the Xfinity level. He’s finished in the top 10 in all three races he’s run at Pocono in the Xfinity Series since 2017. In 2018 he finished fifth after starting on the pole. He finally broke through in 2019 when he won. Custer is one of the biggest names to watch for this weekend.

Berry enters with +700 odds and seems a bit overvalued. He’s having a good season overall but doesn’t have the previous results at Pocono to be this high on the Pocono Green 225 outright odds board. He has one start at Pocono under his belt with a solid ninth-place finish. Compared to a driver like Custer and his track record at Pocono, Berry should be more than a dollar behind him in price.

Gragson enters with +750 odds for this weekend. In three Xfinity Series starts, he’s finished in the top 10 twice with one finish in the top five. In each of his last two starts at Pocono, he’s found his way to the front, no matter how brief it was. Gragson’s luck hasn’t been what it was at the beginning of the season, but +700 isn’t a bad number for a guy who will likely get to the front of the pack. It’s just a matter of when and how long?

Where’s the Value?

For this section, we’re going heavy on A.J. Allmendinger. Allmendinger has been incredibly consistent this season despite being previously labeled as a road-course specialist. At the price of +1200, it’s simply too good to pass up. When betting on a NASCAR race, you obviously want to pick the winner, that’s the whole point, but it’s also about getting the best value for your dollar. There’s no way Allmendinger should have odds this high. How Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has lower odds than the points leader is astounding. In 18 starts in the Cup Series at Pocono, Stenhouse Jr. has never finished better than 11th.

Allmendinger is the leader in the standings for a reason. He finished fifth at Pocono last year and we should expect another consistent performance in this one. If Allmendinger to win seems like too much of a longshot, there are other ways to bet on NASCAR race. Allmendinger to finish in the top five is being offered at +150. You could also short Stenhouse Jr. in this matchup and take Allmendinger in the driver matchup at +120. That’s advantageous because you don’t have to worry about where Allmendinger finishes as long as he’s ahead of Stenhouse Jr. when they wave the checkered flag.