The books have Brock Purdy's MVP place right and his price wrong
One Sunday flipped Purdy and Joe Burrow on the exchange. DraftKings still has Purdy second at plus 350, a price that needs a 22.2 percent chance. The exchange sells the same ticket at 16 cents.
Joe Burrow threw four touchdown passes in Baltimore on Sunday, and by Monday morning DraftKings had cut his MVP price from plus 1000 to plus 500. On Friday he is plus 450.
Brock Purdy threw two interceptions in Atlanta the same afternoon, in San Francisco's first loss. DraftKings had him at plus 350 on Monday and has him at plus 350 on Friday, at 11:09 a.m. Pacific. Caesars is at plus 350 too. That keeps Purdy second on the sportsbooks' board, behind Josh Allen and ahead of Burrow.
Kalshi, a federally regulated exchange where customers trade contracts with one another rather than against a house, has the order the other way round. A contract pays $1 if the player wins the award. At 9 a.m. Pacific on Sunday, before either game kicked off, Purdy was 25 cents bid and 26 asked and Burrow was 6 and 7. At 11:10 a.m. Pacific on Friday, Burrow is 17 bid, 18 asked, and Purdy is 15 bid, 16 asked, with more than 10,000 contracts offered at that 16-cent price.
So the two markets disagree about who is second. That is interesting. What it costs a 49ers fan is more interesting.
What plus 350 asks you to believe#
Plus 350 means a $100 bet returns $350 in profit. To break even at that price a player has to win the award 22.2 percent of the time. The exchange's midpoint for Purdy is 15.5 percent.
Price the ticket at 15.5 and the arithmetic is short. A $100 Purdy bet at plus 350 wins $350 15.5 percent of the time, which is worth $54.25, and loses $100 the other 84.5 percent, which costs $84.50. Net, it gives up $30.25.
Most MVP tickets at a sportsbook are dear, because an award board with dozens of names carries a large margin for the house. The question is where the house puts it. At DraftKings it does not put it evenly across the top three.
What a $100 MVP ticket at DraftKings is expected to give up, the top three names
DraftKings prices at 11:09 a.m. Pacific Friday, each scored against Kalshi's midpoint for the same player at 11:10 a.m. Bar length is scaled to the largest cost.
The Burrow ticket at DraftKings costs about what the exchange would charge you for it. The Purdy ticket costs eight times as much. At three of the four books below, Purdy is the dearest of the three by that measure:
| Book | Purdy | Cost per $100 | Burrow | Cost per $100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DraftKings | +350 | $30.25 | +450 | $3.75 |
| Caesars | +350 | $30.25 | +500 | gains $5.00 |
| bet365 | +375 | about $26 | +400 | $12.50 |
| BetMGM | +500 | $7.00 | +450 | $3.75 |
BetMGM is the exception, and it prices Allen at plus 140, which gives up $26.80 against the exchange. Caesars' plus 500 on Burrow is the one price on the top of the board that beats the exchange's midpoint.
This is the fan tax, and it has an odd shape this week. The same 49ers fan who wants a Super Bowl ticket pays none of it. FanDuel, bet365 and Caesars all have San Francisco at plus 600 to win the Super Bowl, a longer price than the exchange's 16-cent ask, which works out to about plus 525. The books are not shading the team. They are shading the quarterback. My guess at why is that an award board draws smaller bets and fewer people comparing prices than a Super Bowl board does, and no book publishes anything that would confirm it.
The case for the books#
Here is where I part company with the exchange. Purdy's season and Burrow's are close to the same season. Purdy has 1,748 yards, 15 touchdown passes and four interceptions in seven games, at 8.3 yards an attempt. Burrow has 1,653 yards, 15 touchdowns and three interceptions in six, at 7.5. San Francisco is 6-1 and Cincinnati is 4-2.
MVP voters read records. Every MVP from 2015 through 2024 played for a playoff team, and the exchange has the 49ers at 93 bid, 94 asked to make the playoffs against 78 and 80 for the Bengals. It has San Francisco at 72 and 73 to win the NFC West. The exchange moved Purdy ten cents down and Burrow eleven cents up on the strength of one Sunday.
So the books have the order right. My call is that Purdy finishes ahead of Burrow in the AP's MVP vote.
The best argument against that is Burrow's own history. In the 2024 vote he finished fourth with 82 points for a 9-8 Cincinnati team that missed the playoffs, ahead of Jared Goff, who had 47 for a 15-2 Detroit team that was the NFC's top seed. Voters have put Burrow ahead of a better record before, and they did it by a distance.
The play#
The order being right does not make the price right. If you think the exchange has overreacted to Sunday by a few points, Purdy is maybe an 18 percent MVP, and plus 350 still needs 22.2.
No position on Purdy at plus 350 or plus 375. BetMGM's plus 500 needs 16.7 percent and gives up $7 against the exchange. The first price I would put one unit behind is plus 600, which needs 14.3 percent.
The calendar argues for patience. San Francisco is on its bye and does not play again until the Raiders on Nov. 8. Burrow plays Tennessee, 1-6, on Sunday, and Cincinnati is a 12.5-point favorite. A Purdy MVP ticket bought this weekend is bought during the one week he cannot help it and his closest rival on the exchange's board gets the softest game on his schedule.
What would make this wrong#
If the exchange has Purdy above 22 cents after the regular season's final Sunday, when the AP's voters fill in their ballots, plus 350 was early rather than expensive, and anybody who took it beat the number. That is the measure that matters here. A ticket is judged against the last price the market makes, not against whether he wins in February, because the closing price has everything in it that was knowable and the result has one season's luck in it besides.
DraftKings and Caesars have Brock Purdy at plus 350 to win the MVP, a price that needs a 22.2 percent chance. Kalshi has him at 15 cents bid, 16 asked. Against the exchange's midpoint the plus 350 ticket gives up $30.25 per $100, against $3.75 for Joe Burrow at DraftKings, while the 49ers' Super Bowl price at plus 600 is longer than the exchange's. Purdy has the better MVP case than Burrow, and my call is that he finishes ahead of him in the vote. No position on Purdy shorter than plus 600. Nothing here is advice. It is a public record of calls made at stated prices.
Sources: MVP and Super Bowl futures for DraftKings (New Jersey and New York), FanDuel, BetMGM, bet365 and Caesars (New Jersey) from Action Network's public odds feeds at 11:08 and 11:09 a.m. Pacific Friday. DraftKings' Monday MVP prices from Sports Illustrated's odds report of Oct. 26. Kalshi bid and ask for the MVP, Super Bowl, NFC West and playoff contracts at 11:09 and 11:10 a.m. Pacific Friday, and Kalshi's hourly price history for Purdy and Burrow on Oct. 25. Season and game statistics from ESPN. The Cincinnati line from Action Network's consensus. 2024 MVP vote totals from the AP results as published by Sports Illustrated on Feb. 7, 2025.
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