Jay-Z Loses $1 Million Betting On NBA Finals: How The Indiana Pacers Spoiled Rapper's $3.33 Million Payday

by Chris Katje Benzinga Staff Writer

Zinger Key Points

The 2025 NBA Finals feature the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers.
Rapper Jay-Z bet and already lost $1 million on the best-of-seven championship series.
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Rapper Jay-Z made a $1 million bet on the 2025 NBA Finals and before the series is even over, he's already out his bet.

Don't worry though, losing $1 million probably won't be a "hard knock life" for someone worth billions of dollars.

What Happened: He may be a former NBA owner (Brooklyn Nets), but Jay-Z might want to step away from the NBA for a couple of years and not make large bets like Drake and other celebrities.

Ahead of the NBA Finals matchup of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers, Jay-Z bet $1 million on the Thunder winning in five games for the best-of-seven game series.

The Thunder were heavy favorites to win the series and many had them winning in four games or five games, but the Pacers had other plans.

The Pacers won games 1 and 3, with a 116-107 win Wednesday night in game 3, and now lead the series 2-1. This means the best the Thunder can do is win the series in six games if they win three straight games. The Pacers can close out the series in five games with two more wins or win the series in six or seven games.

Jay-Z is a known Nets fan from his days of owning a stake in the team, which he sold in 2013. The New York rapper is also likely a New York Knicks fan given his representation of the state. This could be the reason for betting on the Thunder after the Pacers knocked the Knicks out of the NBA Playoffs.

Or, the rapper was simply looking for a bet on a favorite and a way to juice the line. The bet came with odds of +230, with the $1 million bet paying out a potential profit of $2.3 million and a total payout of $3.3 million if the Thunder had completed the series win in five games.

Another reason not to worry about Jay-Z is where he placed the bet. The rapper made the wager with Fanatics, a growing sports company in the apparel, collectibles, and betting sectors.

Jay-Z invested $350 million in Fanatics back in 2021 when the company was valued at $18 billion. The company was valued at $31 billion in a December 2022 funding round. In 2024, Fanatics had revenue of $8.1 billion, split from Commerce ($6.2 billion), collectibles ($1.6 billion) and betting ($300 million).

The rapper's bet may have been a way to promote the Fanatics Sportsbook, which is operational in more than 20 states and has around 5% market share in the U.S. online sports betting segment, trailing the 85% share of the big three companies (DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM).

What's Next: It's unclear if Jay-Z will be making more bets on the NBA Finals and supporting the Fanatics Sportsbook once again.

Despite having a 2-1 lead in the series, the Pacers are still underdogs at odds of +185 at DraftKings Inc DKNG. The Thunder remain the favorites to win the series at odds of -220. The over/under of 6.5 games is listed with odds of -125 for under with sportsbooks predicting the series will be won by the Pacers or Thunder in less than seven games.

Here is the current remaining television schedule of the NBA Finals, with the games all airing on ABC, a unit of The Walt Disney Company DIS.