LA is betting central with money on the Lakers and Clippers as the NBA playoffs begin

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Lakers often attract large betting interest anyway, but the controversial midseason trade that landed Luka Doncic from Dallas has people emptying their bank accounts to put money on Los Angeles.

And the money, mostly fueled by casual bettors, is still coming.

BetMGM trading manager Halvor Egeland said 99% of the bets on the Lakers' opening-round NBA playoffs series against Minnesota is on LA. That series opens Saturday in Los Angeles.

“It's pretty much all Lakers money coming in so far in the series,” Egeland said. “I think they opened up -160 (favorites), and we've taken some bigger bets on it. There's excitement around the Lakers for sure, but it's surprising how much we've taken on the Lakers.”

LeBron James and the Lakers now are -200 favorites at BetMGM to beat the Timberwolves.

Caesars Sportsbook also has been hit hard with bets on the Lakers, who are drawing strong money to win the Western Conference and NBA Finals.

“It's been kind of a running theme for a few months now,” Caesars pro basketball lead trader David Lieberman said.

They went from about 40-1 at Caesars to win the championship before the Doncic trade to now 10-1.

The Lakers remain Southern California's glamour team, but the Clippers might be playing at a higher level. Bettors certainly are coming around on them.

The Clippers went from underdogs to favorites at BetMGM and Caesars in their first-round series against Denver even though the Nuggets have home-court advantage.

“I really think the Clippers could come out of the West,” CBS SportsLine handicapper Bruce Marshall said. “Nobody's talking about them. ... but I think they could win everything, I really do. It's a great veteran mix. They're not too old. They've got guys who've been around and won titles.”

The oft-injured Kawhi Leonard finally looks like the player who won championships in San Antonio and Toronto.

“Personally, it does come to Kawhi's health,” Egeland said. “Right now, he's been great, but history repeats itself frequently — Kawhi Leonard gets hurt and James Harden no-shows in some games in the playoffs. There does seem to be a belief in (Leonard), but we'll see what happens.”

Boston might be headed into the playoffs as the second seed in the Eastern Conference behind Cleveland, but the Celtics are favored at both sportsbooks to make the NBA Finals.

The Celtics are trying to become the NBA's first repeat champion since 2018 when Golden State won its third title in four years.

They are +200 at BetMGM win the title, just behind Oklahoma City at +185. The numbers are similar at Caesars — +200 for the Celtics to +170 for the Thunder.

“Boston was playing pretty well down the stretch,” Marshall said. “They’d probably be favored over (East top seed) Cleveland even though they wouldn’t have home court.”

There will be plenty of focus on Jaylen Brown. The MVP of last year's NBA Finals has received knee injections and hasn't played much over the past month.

“On paper, I think the Celtics have a pretty big edge (in the East) if they’re healthy,” Lieberman said. “But I feel like they probably won’t be entirely healthy.”

A Golden State championship would be bad news for the sportsbooks after all the money that has come in on the Warriors since they acquired Jimmy Butler. He helped spark a late-season run before the Warriors lost three of their final five regular-season games.

That forced the Warriors into the Play-In Tournament, and they defeated Memphis 121-116 on Tuesday night to secure the seventh seed.

“I am a little bit skeptical they can make a run all the way through the West,” Lieberman said. “A lot of their players are pretty old and it's hard to see them surviving the gauntlet. On talent alone, you have (Steph) Curry and Butler playing at a high level and the experience they have going up against younger teams in Houston and OKC (Oklahoma City). I won't count them out.”

Top-seeded Oklahoma City is almost being overlooked by the bettors, but much of that has to do with the price point rather than the team youth and inexperience playing in the playoffs.

The Thunder, led by MVP favorite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, are heavy favorites to at least make the NBA Finals. Many gamblers are finding greater value with other teams in what is a deep Western Conference.

“I don't think that they're doubting the Thunder,” Egeland said. “I think it's more that you don't want to place a bet on a team with that short of odds.”

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Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, right, shoots near Los Angeles Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt, left, during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Golden State Warriors forward Jimmy Butler III brings the ball up the court against the Memphis Grizzlies during the first half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Boston Celtics' Jaylen Brown, right, talks with former teammate, Washington Wizards' Marcus Smart, following an NBA basketball game Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard (2) get looked at by the medics during second half of an NBA basketball game against theSacramento Kings, Friday, April 11, 2025, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Scott Marshall)

Los Angeles Lakers' Luka Doncic (77) and LeBron James, center, right, hug and celebrate late in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Dallas Mavericks in Dallas, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Strong winter winds collapsed walls onto flimsy tents for Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing at least four, hospital authorities said Tuesday.

Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls. A ceasefire has been in effect since Oct. 10. But aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.

The dead include two women, a girl and a man, according to Shifa Hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received the bodies.

Meanwhile, the child death toll in Gaza ticked up. The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday a 1-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight, while the spokesman for the U.N.'s children agency said over 100 children and teenagers have been killed by “military means" since the ceasefire began.

Three members of the same family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 8-meter (26-foot)-high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area along the Mediterranean shore of Gaza City, Shifa Hospital said. At least five others were injured.

Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.

“The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms,” Bassel Hamouda said after the funeral. “It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip.”

A second woman was killed when a wall fell on her tent in the western part of the city, Shifa Hospital said.

The majority of Palestinians live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. When storms strike the territory, Palestinian rescue workers warn people against seeking shelter inside damaged buildings for fears of collapse. Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.

In the central town of Zawaida, Associated Press footage showed inundated tents Tuesday morning, with people trying to rebuild their shelters.

Yasmin Shalha, a displaced woman from the northern town of Beit Lahiya, stood against winds that lifted the tarps of tents around her as she stitched hers back together with needle and thread. She said it had fallen on top of her family the night before, as they slept.

“The winds were very, very strong. The tent collapsed over us,” the mother of five told the AP. “As you can see, our situation is dire.”

On the shore in southern Gaza, tents were swept away into the Mediterranean. Families pulled what was left from the sea, while some built sand barriers to hold back rising water.

“The sea took our mattresses, our tents, our food, and everything we owned," Shaban Abu Ishaq said, as he dragged part of his tent out of the sea in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis.

Mohamed al-Sawalha, a 72-year-old man from the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya, said the conditions most Palestinians in Gaza endure are barely livable.

“It doesn’t work neither in summer nor in winter,” he said of the tent. “We left behind houses and buildings (with) doors that could be opened and closed. Now we live in a tent. Even sheep don’t live like we do.”

Residents aren’t able to return to their homes in Israeli-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza's Health Ministry said the 1-year-old in the central town of Deir al-Balah was the seventh fatality due to the cold conditions since winter started. Others included a baby just seven days old and a 4-year-old girl, whose deaths were announced Monday.

The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 people were killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder said Tuesday at least 100 children under the age of 18 — 60 boys and 40 girls — have been killed since the truce began due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflect incidents where enough details have been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He said hundreds of children have been wounded.

While “bombings and shootings have slowed” during the ceasefire, they have not stopped, Elder told reporters at a U.N. briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. “So what the world now calls calm would be considered a crisis anywhere else,” he said.

Gaza's population of more than 2 million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months. It's the third winter since the war between Israel and Hamas started on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory offensive.

Samy Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Palestinians repair their tents after they were damaged by a storm at a displacement camp in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A view of a displacement camp sheltering Palestinians on a beach amid stormy weather in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A man carries a piece of wood at a displacement camp sheltering Palestinians on a beach amid stormy weather in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Members of the Hamouda family bid farewell to relatives who died when a damaged building collapsed onto their tents during a storm of wind and rain, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

People inspect the site where at least four Palestinians died following the collapse of walls onto tents sheltering displaced people in Gaza City amid rainfall and strong winds, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)