Greg Olsen places first legal North Carolina bet on Bubba Wallace to win NASCAR Championship

Sports betting is now legal in North Carolina. To celebrate, former NFL star Greg Olsen bet on Bubba Wallace to win the NASCAR Cup Series championship. Olsen showed off his bet at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Now that all of those NASCAR-loving North Carolinians have sports betting, it is a whole new world. Olsen opened up that world by putting his money on 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace.

Wallace made the NASCAR Playoffs for the first time in 2023 and advanced to the Round of 12. He would finish the season 10th overall in the standings. Greg Olsen is expecting big things from Wallace this season.

Greg Olsen, who played tight end for the Carolina Panthers from 2011 to 2019, is making a bold bet here. To start the season, Wallace was at +3500 odds to win the Cup Series championship. That has since moved to about +3000 depending on which sportsbook you go through.

Denny Hamlin has made it known that he expects his drivers at 23XI to compete for championships. He had a five-year plan to put a driver in the Championship 4 and between Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick, he hopes that comes true this year or next to complete the goal in that timeline.

Bubba Wallace trips up after hot start

Now, things have been good, not great for Bubba Wallace this season so far. He earned two P5 finishes to start the year at Daytona and Atlanta. Then things at Las Vegas got messy when he had a lug nut stuck on one of his wheels. He finished P35.

Yesterday at Phoenix, things improved once again. He was struggling in dirty air for most of the day. Still, he avoided wrecks and stayed out of trouble. Even with struggling to pass other cars, Wallace finished a respectable P16. Nothing to write home about, but it could have been worse.

Wallace sits at 13th overall in the points standings. It has been a better beginning to the year for the 23 team who has had a bit of bad luck in the first two months of the season in the past.

Bristol and COTA are going to tell us a lot more about what to expect from Bubba Wallace and this team. If he can make it through the first road course without a DNF then things should start looking up for him. For a driver that hits his groove about midway through the season, it has been a strong start overall.