Las Vegas NBA Team Name Odds

By Christopher Boan

Mar 31st, 2026 12:08 PM EDT

T-Mobile Arena, the site of the Emirates NBA Cup (USATODAY)

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The NBA Board of Governors voted unanimously on March 25, 2026 to explore expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle. A franchise name for the Vegas team won't be announced for months, but the question is already one of the hottest talking points in sports media. Bookies.com built proprietary odds on what the team will be called, with the league’s past naming mechanisms giving us a hand.

Simply put, we disagree with the other sportsbooks. BetOnline and Bovada have Outlaws and Mirage as co-favorites. But our methodology -- built on NBA naming conventions, ownership group fit, trademark viability and league palatability -- tells a different story.

Our Methodology

Each name is scored across four factors:

• NBA naming conventions -- do existing NBA teams use this type of name? Animals, geographic phenomena, and action words dominate. Gambling-adjacent names are nearly absent.
• Ownership group fit -- Magic Johnson's MAGI group skews prestige and spectacle (Mirage). Bill Foley's group skews military/menace (Golden Knights precedent = Scorpions, Vipers, Sidewinders).
• Trademark viability -- Aces (WNBA), Raiders (NFL), Golden Knights (NHL), Rebels (UNLV), and Kings (Sacramento) are all eliminated. MGM Mirage closed in 2024, freeing that trademark.
• League palatability -- Adam Silver's NBA has carefully managed its gambling-adjacent image. Jackpots, Hustlers, and Degenerates are near-certain vetoes regardless of fan support.

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Why Bookies.com Disagrees With Other Books

While other outlets have suggested that a casino-related Las Vegas NBA franchise name odds centered around nicknames like the Jackpots, Jokers or Hustlers could be in store for the Sin City, such an outcome would be a surprise, given how league teams are named.

That’s because across the 30-team league, teams named after locally found animals, geographic phenomena and action words in general dominate, nickname-wise, which would lead us to believe that Vegas’ location in the middle of the desert (Mirage) and the types of animals found there (scorpions or vipers) would be the leading candidates for the Las Vegas NBA expansion team name.

While other outlets have implied that nicknames like the Outlaws are the prohibitive favorite, nickname-wise, we have its Las Vegas NBA franchise name odds at +1350, because the NBA is not the NFL and is not the machismo-laden, aggressive type of sport (like football) that leans into toughness or aggression, nickname-wise.

In contrast, Silver’s built the NBA into a fashion-forward, corporate-friendly brand in which a team name like Outlaws wouldn’t really fit, which is why we’re not sold on it winning out in Vegas this time around.

The Magic Johnson/Bill Foley Factors

The two groups that are believed to be bidding for the franchise, in Magic Johnson’s MAGI group and Bill Foley (who also owns the Vegas Golden Knights) would imply that names like Mirage, Scorpions, Vipers or Sidewinders would be leading candidates.

With Johnson’s group planning to build an arena-hotel/resort complex of their own, it’s natural to tie their efforts with The Mirage brand that MGM built in the city as an epicenter of spectacle and entertainment, with a possible Las Vegas NBA team name Mirage making a lot of sense, branding-wise.

That logic also stems from the prestige and spectacle that the former leader of the Lakers’ ‘Showtime’ era would bring the franchise, making Mirage a natural fit for such an ownership group, while Foley’s group skews towards military (Golden Knights) or menace, which puts fearsome insects and reptiles in play for the NBA’s newest club.

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The Eliminated Names

The Mirage logic for Vegas also stems from the other club names that are trademarked, such as Vegas’ WNBA franchise (the Aces), as well as the NFL’s Raiders and NHL’s Golden Knights.

Mirage, meanwhile, is on the open market in Las Vegas now that MGM closed the MGM Mirage two years ago, while also avoiding being too on the nose, gambling-wise. That could likely win over Silver, who’s managed the league’s gambling-adjacent image in recent years.

With that in mind, potential Vegas NBA nicknames like the Jackpots, Hustlers or Degenerates would almost certainly draw the ire of NBA ownership (and Silver himself), which is why we’re guessing the newest professional franchise in the city won’t go that way.

When Will We Learn The Las Vegas NBA Team Name?

The NBA wants ownership finalized by the July 2026 Board of Governors meeting during Summer League in Las Vegas. Once an ownership group is named, they will likely signal the name direction quickly -- the bid announcement is effectively the first real indicator of which names become favorites.

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