Bronny James was never going to be the first overall pick of last month’s NBA Draft. After he was selected 55th overall (and looked like the No. 55 pick in his Summer League debut last weekend), I hope that’s now obvious to anyone who thought it was ever a possibility.

And trust, there were more than a few people who genuinely thought it was a possibility. At one point, James had attracted 22.7 percent of the bets to go No. 1 at BetMGM, which made him the sportsbook’s biggest liability.

As it turns out, though, not all of those bettors really thought he’d be the top pick. Some knew he had no chance of going No. 1 and bet on him anyway. And they actually had perfectly logical reason for doing it, ESPN reporting found: they were trying to increase their limits.

As some may know, sportsbooks — that have no problem letting bettors lose as much as they can afford to — sometimes take part in the terrible practice of limiting bettors who win too much. In response, apparently some of these sharp bettors try to place dummy bets to get books to raise their limits.

Betting on James to be drafted No. 1 was an example of that. It’s probably why some people are betting on him to win Rookie of the Year.

“I’ve been limited at all these books,” a bettor named Steve told ESPN. “I’m not really betting that Bronny will go No. 1 overall; what I’m effectively betting is that there’s some chance that all these books will say, ‘whoever bet Bronny must be dumb’ and then they’ll give me better limits. That’s the bet that I’m making.”

When you wanna get your limits raised a little bit pic.twitter.com/gDyvvZv2DO

— Alex Baker (@AwesemoDFS) June 21, 2024

I’m not sure this strategy actually worked, but I can’t say it wasn’t worth the try.