Caesars Will Offer Betting on Swimming at 2024 World Championships

For the first time ever, Caesars Sportsbook will offer betting on swimming at the World Championships during the 2024 edition next February in Doha, Qatar.

Wagering on swimming at the Olympics is fairly common, but Caesars is adding Worlds to next year’s betting calendar to build excitement for the Paris 2024 Olympics. Adam Pullen, the assistant director of trading at Caesars, gave SwimSwam a behind-the-scenes look at how odds are set for swimming.

“Obviously it takes time to research, takes time to make numbers and do a good enough job to where you can be confident in what lines you’re putting out,” Pullen said. “We hae teams that follow all the Olympic sports, so we have people on it. It’s just tough sometimes when you don’t have familiarity with booking those events. If you’re doing it once every four years, you don’t have that knowledge.”

“It’s tough to keep up that knowledge and plus a lot of it depends on how much action you’re seeing,” he added. “I mean, there’s sometimes a lot of stuff that we’ll put up, it doesn’t necessarily draw a lot of bets and sometimes we have to balance that. Is it worth the energy and the focus to offer that if you’re not getting it in return? With sports betting becoming legal, a lot of people think that you just put it up and the money will come flowing in regardless of what sport it is and that’s just not really true.”

Pullen said Caesars will be offering betting lines on “as many events as we can” for the 2024 World Championships, but he thinks they’ll have every event for the Paris 2024 Olympics in July.

“I think swimming is one of the best, one of the more interesting sports to watch and wager on,” Pullen said. “We’ve seen a lot of interest — a lot of things can happen. You’re deciding races by hundredths of seconds, and it definitely gets the blood flowing when you got a little action on it, too.”

Pullen said Caesars oddsmakers follow the same set of principles regardless of sport.

“You do the research, you collaborate with a few people and come to a consensus, and let the bets come in and see where it takes you,” Pullen said. “Information on anything is better than it was years ago. So you just have to put in the time and do the work, look at as many statistics and recent races, recent meets, all that stuff goes into it and just get as much information as possible. Scouring to find all that is not as hard as it used to be. I’ve made odds on plenty of things over the years that I am definitely not an expert at.”

Part of the job, he emphasized, is learning from the losses. Pullen said offering betting lines on the 2024 World Championships will hopefully help Caesars have “sharper and better lines when the Olympics come around in Paris next summer.”

“Sometimes you take some lumps, but that’s how you learn,” Pullen said. “The next year you’re going to offer that event, you’re a little wiser next year because I’m far from an expert on international swimming.”

Pullen noted that limits on swimming wagers are going to be smaller than major sports. But that doesn’t mean Caesars takes the odds lightly, claiming they “give the same amount of credence no matter if you’re putting up a unique bet on the NFL or whether you’re doing the swimming World Championships.”

“You’re not going to be able to plunk down five, six figures usually on who’s going to win the 50 meters at the World Championships,” Pullen said. “Your limits are going to be smaller in sports like swimming. If someone comes up wanting to bet a big amount on a sport that doesn’t draw a lot of betting action, obviously that raises eyebrows because there are a lot of people that know more about swimming than I do.”

Pullen said he prides himself on offering odds on as many sports as possible featuring unique events that other books don’t offer.

“You never know how much you’re going to take until you put it up,” Pullen said. “Some people say, ‘Well, yeah, it’s not going to take a lot of action, so we’re just not going to put it up.’ Well there’s only one way to find out, and that’s by putting it up and letting the customers decide if they want to bet it or not. Now we’re looking to spread our wings into this, and you can almost say that your request sort of spurred us on and got us to do it. Hopefully the work will get people excited about swimming and that’ll lead into excitement for the Olympics.”

Caesars’ odds for 2024 Worlds are expected to be released a week or two before the meet starts on Feb. 2.

Sports betting is now legal in 37 states along with Washington, D.C.