LOTS of major precursor awards have announced, and the Oscar picture is becoming clearer. Or muddier. Take your pick that fits your own narrative. The good news, is that I’ve found some value in betting picks. MyBookie doesn’t currently have Academy Awards lines, but Bovada and BetUS do. As always, these are my preferred three SportsBook, but if you are lucky enough to live in a state/country that offers more variety, the choice is yours.
BetUS Lines
BetUS has some pretty strict betting limits. For that purpose, I’m comfortable just betting the max on each of these picks instead of breaking them out into betting units. For most of the lines, the max is $25, which for me is 1.25 betting units.
Angela Bassett +700
Angela Bassett has huge value right now sitting at +700 (implied probability of 12.5%.) The Best Supporting Actress race is WIDE open, and the two favorites at BetUS are Kerry Condon and Jessie Buckley both at +150. However, Jessie Buckley was shut out when the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) announced their nominations on January 11. Who wasn’t shut out? Right, Angela Bassett. She also won a Golden Globe, which admittedly should be taken with a grain of salt since there is exactly zero overlap between Golden Globes voters and Academy Award voters, but a winner at the Golden Globes paying 7 to 1 odds to win an Oscar is hard to ignore. I’m putting the max bet on Angela Bassett.
The Fabelmans +500
The Best Picture race, right now, is a three-horse race between Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, and The Fabelmans. Personally, I think it’s only a two-horse race, excluding The Banshees of Inisherin. It’s a well-crafted film, and the acting is top-notch with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Kerry Condon nearly guaranteed an Oscar nomination while Barry Keoghan isn’t a guarantee, but would be an unsurprising Oscar nominee, especially coming off his SAG nomination. However, I just don’t see it resonating with most of the Academy voters as much as the passion behind EEAAO and The Fabelmans. BetUS has set the betting line for The Fabelmans at +500, and if this is a three-horse race, The Fabelmans absolutely has a better chance of winning than the implied probability of 17%. Top Gun: Maverick also has a betting line of +500, and any reasonable Oscar prognosticator will concede that The Fabelmans is safer pick for a Best Picture win than Top Gun: Maverick. I’m putting the max on The Fabelmans, especially after its Golden Globe win for Best Drama, its SAG Ensemble nomination (which carries heavy predictive validity for Best Picture nominations), and its Producers Guild nomination for Best Feature.
Brendan Fraser +100
Brendan Fraser has always been the frontrunner for the Oscar win since the film awards season started. Yes, Colin Farrell and Austin Butler has won a lot of precursor awards, including the Golden Globes, but when the PGA announced their nominations for Best Picture, many were surprised by The Whale being included over Women Talking. Hong Chau was also a somewhat surprising nomination for a SAG award. This means that Academy Award voters are, at least on some level, resonating with The Whale, which only boosts Brendan Fraser’s stock. This is also a three-horse race, and BetUS is paying 1 to 1 odds at +100 (or even, depending on your preferred terminology.) I consider Fraser to be the frontrunner, and he is technically the betting favorite at BetUS, but any time you can pick a favorite paying 1 to 1 or better is a bet worth taking.
Ke Huy Quan -275
I normally don’t like to bet on heavy favorites, but does anyone doubt Ke Huy Quan’s hoisting the Oscar statuette? This is a VERY rare heavy favorite that I’m putting the max on.
Steven Spielberg +150
The Academy has split Director and Best Picture more often than not in recent years, but given his track record, given his film is deeply personal, and given The Fabelmans is a frontrunner, I like this line.
Bovada Betting Lines
Bovada lines are quite different than BetUS’s lines, so I’m not pulling the trigger on as many here.
The Whale +10000
A PGA nominee getting 100 to 1 odds? Sure, why not, but I’m only putting 0.1 betting units on it. It’s basically a lottery ticket. I don’t like to do this that often, but any PGA nomination paying 100 to 1 is worth the price of a soda.
The Fabelmans +250
Again, I consider The Fabelmans a frontunner, if not THE frontrunner. I definitely consider it being more of a frontrunner than the 29% implied probability. I’m putting one betting unit on it.
Brendan Fraser -150
I admittedly was hesitant since this has an implied probability of 60%, but if Brendan Fraser starts winning some more awards at this stage in the film awards season, that line will move more into negative territory. So I’m putting one unit on it to take advantage of the line before it gets into -200 territory.
Leave a Reply