Colton Herta is the PointsBet favorite for Long Beach

For the second time in 2022, Colton Herta is this week’s PointsBet Sportsbook favorite for the Grand Prix of Long Beach (Sunday, 3 p.m. ET on NBC and streaming on Peacock, the NBC Sports App and NBCSports.com).

Herta’s line this week is +475, which is a significant increase from the +340 he showed prior to the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Herta finished fourth in that race, but won the last two road course races of 2021 including the Long Beach Grand Prix. He also won the 2021 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg to give him three road course wins on the season and tie him with Alex Palou.

One way to view American Odds is to move the decimal point two positions to the left. That will let a bettor know what they will make on a $1 bet, so the return on investment this week for Herta is $4.75. For bettors more comfortable with fractional odds, a bet of +300 is the same as 3/1.

MORE: NBC Sports Predictor, Grand Prix of Long Beach

Josef Newgarden is ranked second this week with a line of +750. Newgarden scored one road course victory last year at the Mid-Ohio Sportscar Course, but he finished second three times including Long Beach.

Ranked third this week, Palou was hit-or-miss for most of the 2021 road course season. His three wins and eight top-fives were countered by five results outside the top 10. He has recent momentum, however; his most recent road course win came at Portland International Raceway and it kicked off a current four-race streak of top-fives on this track type. Palou finished seventh on the Texas oval.

Three drivers opened this week with a line of +850.

MORE: Max Verstappen is Australian GP favorite

Scott Dixon earned seven top-fives last year with a best finish of second on the Nashville street course. He was eighth in the 2022 season opener at St. Petersburg.

Will Power earned just three road course top-fives last year, but one of these was a win on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. Unfortunately, that victory stands out among four results of 14th or worse on either side. Power finished third earlier this year at St. Petersburg.

Patricio O’Ward rounds out the three drivers listed at 17/2. He had five road course top-fives last year that included a win at Belle Isle. He finished outside the top 10 in the season opener with a 12th-place result.

One PointsBet longshot of note this week is Jimmie Johnson. For most of 2021 and in the opening round this season, he was listed at the very bottom of the ranking with odds of 500/1. His top-10 finish on the Texas Motor Speedway oval contributed to a change in direction among the PointsBet traders and he is listed at 250/1 for the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Previous Betting Lines

Round 1: St Petersburg: Colton Herta favored

Round 2: Texas: Scott Dixon favored

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INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports

Colton Herta is PointsBet favorite for the Grand Prix of Long Beach

Winner Josef Newgarden earns $3.666 million from a record Indy 500 purse of $17 million

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