The LPGA comes to New Jersey for the second time this year as the 34th annual ShopRite LPGA Classic returns to the Seaview, A Dolce Hotel — Bay Course in Galloway, starting with first-round action Friday morning.
The 144-player field will be competing for a $1.75 million purse and will be without last week’s U.S. Women’s Open champion, Minjee Lee, who won by four strokes.
Several New Jersey betting sportsbooks have posted odds for this weekend’s tournament. TopNJCasinos.com checked in with two of them to get the latest numbers.
Top 5 Favorites for LPGA Shoprite Classic
Jin Young Ko, last year’s runner-up and current No. 2 player in the world, leads the top five favorites at Caesars Sportsbook at +450. Lydia Ko is second at +650, followed by Hye Jin Choi (+1100, finished third in U.S. Women’s Open last week), Nasa Hataoka (+1200) and Inbee Park (+1200).
Other notables include last year’s champion, Celine Boutier (+1600); Brooke Henderson (+1600); two-time winner Anna Nordqvist (+2200); Leona Maguire (+2800); New Jerseyan Marina Alex (+3500); Mina Harigae (+5000), runner-up in last week’s U.S. Women’s Open, and two-time champion Stacy Lewis (+8000).
The top five favorites over at BetMGM are: Young Ko (+400), Ko (+600), Jin Choi (+1100), Hataoka (+1200) and Henderson (+1400).
Last year, Boutier rallied from a five-shot deficit going into the final day to earn her second-career LPGA Tour victory. She shot a Sunday final round 63 to hold off Young Ko, Park and Henderson.
On May 15, the world’s second-ranked player, Minjee Lee (-19), won by two shots over runner-up Lexi Thompson (-17) at the Cognizant Founders Club at Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton, the LPGA’s first stop in the state this year.
This year’s tournament will be broadcast live for the first time in history, as CBS will carry Sunday’s final round (final two hours) and stream live on Paramount+. Golf Channel will air the first two rounds and the first hour of Sunday’s final round.
New Jersey’s April Report Fell Below $1B
New Jersey fell under the $1 billion mark in total sports handle when April’s numbers were released.
The state probably will release its report on sports betting handle and revenue for May sometime next week.
New Jersey, more often than not recently, has posted $1 billion in monthly handle.
The sports betting handle in the Garden State dropped to $927 million. That figure was down more than 17% from March, when the handle was $1.12 billion.
Revenue also was down 24.2% to $50.35 million after being at $66.4 million for the month of March.
The state has kept doomsayers quiet. Those are the folks who thought New Jersey betting numbers would plummet wildly when the state of New York launched mobile sports betting in January.
Clearly, that has not been the case.
