Sports betting organisations the world over have reacted to Nigeria’s D’Tigers’ victories over the United States and Argentina by improving the odds of the Nigerian team’s chances of winning GOLD in the Basketball event of the Tokyo Olympics.
Nigeria’s men’s Basketball team, prior to last weekend’s shock 90-87 win over the world’s top Basketball team, USA, were pegged at 151.00 (150/1) across most major sports betting platforms when it came to their chances of clinching GOLD at the Tokyo Olympics.
But after the Mike Brown-tutored D’Tigers got the better of Team USA in the pre-Olympic Games tune-up match, the odds improved significantly to 51.00 (50/1) across most of the world’s major sports betting platforms.
Nigeria’s 51.00 odds of winning gold in Tokyo was only better than those of Germany (66.00), Czech Republic (86.00), Japan (101.00) and Iran (101.00).
Those odds have even further improved to between 29.00 (28/1) and 31.00 (30/1) following Nigeria’s exciting 94-71 blowout of another top-ranked team Argentina on Monday night in another pre-Olympic Games preparatory match.
Now, the only teams higher ranked than Nigeria in the odds department are Slovenia (20.00), France (17.00), Australia (13.00), Spain (10.00), and the United States (1.18).
All of that could change again when the Nigerians take on the Aussies in Las Vegas on Tuesday night (2:30 AM Wednesday in Nigeria) in both sides’ final pre-Olympic Games tune-up match.
Australia will also be Nigeria’s first opponent at the Olympic Games with the Group B game taking place in Saitama on July 25. Saitama will also be the venue of D’Tigers’ other group stage games against Germany (July 28) and Italy (July 31).
