Las Vegas Motor Speedway hosts the second of three straight intermediate tracks in the Chase. Kyle Larson carries a 26-point lead into the weekend after his Kansas win. This race could start separating the real contenders from the pack.
For DraftKings Sportsbook NASCAR best bets and picks, follow @Race4thePrize on X.
NASCAR Best Bets for the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas
Race Winner — Kyle Larson +350
Larson has finished four of his last five Vegas starts in the top 10, including wins in the spring of 2024 and fall of 2023. Last fall, Larson was the runner-up. His average running position across the last five Las Vegas races is 6.2. His speed score, a measure of how his fastest laps stacked up against the race’s fastest laps, ranked inside the top-10 in three of those five — better than any other driver in the field. Larson’s median Las Vegas finish in the last seven races at this 1.5-mile intermediate track is second place. Again, it’s the best in the field.
He not only won at Kansas last week. Larson dominated. He swept the stages and nearly led all the laps. The performance pushed his points lead to 26 over Denny Hamlin. Yung Money has finished inside the top 5 in every Chase race so far. No other playoff driver has matched his run. Track history and current form checked out last week. They check out again. Don’t overthink it.
Race Winner — Tyler Reddick +1000
Reddick’s last five Vegas results look worse than they were. He ran down the field from 18th to finish second in the spring of 2024 and was fifth last fall after starting eighth. His one true bad day, a 35th in 2024, came from a crash while running well from a second-place start, not a lack of speed. Strip that race out and his average running position over the other four is 6.5, right in line with Larson’s own mark at this track.
The results just haven’t caught up lately. He’s fallen to seventh in the Chase, 111 points behind Larson. After finishing 25th at Gateway, 18th at Bristol and 11th at Kansas, he told reporters, “I don’t know, it’s so crazy to be that bad.” None of those came at Vegas, though, and the numbers here say the speed that carried him from 18th to second is still in the car. At +1000, it’s a bet on that speed catching back up to the results.
