This is our complete guide to Olympics betting. We’re going to reveal everything that you need to know about betting on the Olympics, giving you the lowdown on all of the events that you will be able to bet on at the Paris Games of 2024.
Take a look at our recommended Olympic betting sites.
The Olympic Games are the biggest sporting festival on the planet. There are two types of Olympics, the summer games and the winter games. Both are held every four years and see over 200 teams representing different countries, compete across a wide variety of popular team sports and individual events.
In 2024 the Summer Olympics will come to Paris. The Paris 2024 games starts on Friday, 26th July with the opening ceremony and will run through to Sunday 11th August.
All the Olympics betting sites above have odds for the events taking place, before and throughout the Summer Games.
Here are all the popular sports and niche ones taking place during the Paris Games and will be available for Olympics 2024 betting at sportsbooks.
We’re now going to take a closer look at some of the sports that you will find at 2024 Olympics betting websites.
When you think of the Summer Olympics, it is the athletic events that tend to come immediately to mind. Individual athletes from all over the world will be competing in Paris to win gold, across a variety of disciplines. Let’s break those Olympics athletics betting events down.
There are a wide variety of different running events at every Olympics, ranging from short sprints, to middle-distance and then gruelling walks and marathons. Then there are also the athletic disciplines, which combine running with jumping, such as the hurdles and steeplechase, in which there is always the possibility that the odds will be upset, by a leading athlete taking a fall.
The biggest single event for Olympic betting is the men’s 100m sprint. The fastest person on the planet will be crowned in that race, with Kishane Thompson the favourite to win gold. Here is the full range of running and walking events that you will see at Paris 2024.
The tests of strength in athletics come in the form of the throwing events. Yet it is not just mere brute force that is required, with an incredible amount of technique also involved.
These are very specialist disciplines, which require entirely different skillsets. Here are the throwing events that you will be able to find Olympic betting odds for this summer.
The third group of athletics events that we will enjoy in Paris are the various jumping disciplines. Again, these are the preserves of specialists.
The long jump and triple jump require great sprinting ability and competitors often come from a running background. Meanwhile, the high jump and pole vault require astonishing technique, as athletes soar to great heights. Here are the jumping events that will be available to wager on at Olympic betting sites this summer.
As we’ve highlighted, the various athletics events at the Olympics are extremely varied. So the heptathlon, which sees female athletes compete for points across seven different disciplines.
The Belgian Nafissatou Thiam has won gold at the last two Olympics and will be aiming for the three-peat in Paris. Here are the seven athletics events that Thiam and her fellow competitors will undergo in the heptathlon.
For multi-discipline male athletes at the Olympics, there are ten different events to master in the decathlon. It’s a truly gruelling test, with the muscle needed to be competitive in the sprint and throwing events, being a disadvantage when the 1500m comes around.
Damian Warner of Canada is the defending champion and is favourite to claim gold again. Here are the ten disciplines that make up the decathlon.
There is always great interest in basketball at the Olympics. It gives the USA an opportunity to create an Olympic team featuring superstars from the NBA. The current ‘Dream Team’ for 2024 includes talents such as LeBron James, Kevin Durrant and Stephen Curry, making the US hot favourites to claim gold.
Olympic basketball tournaments have been dominated by the USA in both the mens and women’s competitions and both teams are hot favourites in the Olympic odds. Since the 2020 Olympics, there has also been 3×3 basketball at the games, with the US women’s team winning the inaugural gold and the men’s event being won by Latvia.
Another team sport, football, is sure to receive a lot of attention in Paris. In the Men’s Olympic tournament, teams are restricted to a squad of mainly under-23 players, with a maximum of three overage players being allowed.
With home advantage and legendary former player Thierry Henry coaching them, the French team are the favourites in the Olympic Games betting.
In the women’s event, there are no age restrictions. It is therefore little surprise to see that Spain are the favourites for gold, having selected a squad largely made up of the players that won the World Cup in 2023.
Golf is a sport that did not feature in the Olympics for many years. The Rio Games of 2016 saw golf return to the sporting menu, having last previously featured in 1920 in Antwerp. In the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda from Team USA, won the men’s and women’s competitions, respectively.
Korda is the favourite to defend her Olympic title, while in the men’s event, another American leads the Olympic Games betting, in the form of Scottie Scheffler. With golf being the sort of sport where any number of players could find form and win, these are likely to be amongst the most competitive betting markets, with big prices on offer.
Handball is the sort of sport that receives little attention most of the time, but is given a chance to shine on the biggest stage at the Olympics. The men’s event has been won by France in three of the last four games (2008, 2012 and 2020), while they also claimed silver in 2016.
France are therefore expected to hang onto their title according to the Olympic medal betting odds. The French also won the women’s handball gold in Tokyo, but other European nations such as Denmark and Norway have also had success in recent games.
Like golf, this is a sport that did not feature at the Olympics for a long time. Tennis returned for the Seoul Olympics of 1988, for the first time since the last Paris games of 1924. The 2024 Olympics will see five tennis medals up for grabs, with singles and doubles titles available for both men and women, along with a mixed doubles event.
Though top players are keen to take gold, the Olympics comes at a critical time in the tennis season, between the Grand Slam events Wimbledon and the US Open. Fitness, form and motivation should therefore be factors that you consider when betting on Paris 2024.
With the summer games only coming around every four years, you might not be familiar with the Olympic betting experience. Here are some of the markets that you can expect to see at Olympics betting websites.
By now you may be itching to start betting on the upcoming Olympics. Before you make that leap, take some time to read our betting strategies for the Paris games.
With so many major events and sports taking place at the Olympics. It is essentially impossible to be an expert in all of them. Rugby Sevens has absolutely nothing in common with equestrian sports for example, so it’s tough for anyone to be experts in both fields.
Find an Olympic event that you have a genuine interest in and do your research to gain an edge on the bookie. That might be a broad category such as athletics, or you could hone in on a more niche sport.
Sportsbooks will employ expert oddsmakers for many Olympic sports such as football, tennis and golf, which are popular to bet on all year round. They do not however, employ genuine experts in sports like archery, judo or skateboarding.
So, when it comes to pricing up such events, their odds teams are reliant on factors such as research and the prices of other bookies. This creates an opportunity for sports fans to bet on markets where they have more knowledge than the people that are setting the odds.
The odds of any major sporting event can be impacted by the weight of money that is being bet on it by punters. As more money is bet on a certain outcome, bookmakers are likely to lower their prices on that pick, in order to protect their liability. Fans love to bet on their favourite teams, compatriots and athletes, which can skew markets.
In the case of the Olympics, competitors from large nations or countries that love betting such as the UK, can find themselves at an artificially short price, due to the amount of money being bet on them. Such instances will mean that other selections in the market, could represent better value.
It will be useful to know which nations have a reputation for excellence at a sport or discipline, that will feature in the Olympics. So Kenya for instance, tends to produce quality distance runners.
This is not something that is set in stone and can be impacted by investment and coaching. The British cycling team is a good example. When Chris Boardman won gold at Barcelona 1992, it was Team GB’s first competition cycle gold since 1920.
The Brits have since enjoyed dominance of cycling at the Olympics and top the all-time medal list. Look into the nations which have a strong record in a certain sport, as their athletes are sure to have an extra edge.
With the Olympics only coming every four years, it can be a challenge for athletes to peak at the right time. In the build up to the Olympics, check to see who is hitting form. In athletics, find out who has recorded the fastest times, produced the best jumps and furthest throws.
Yet the ability to produce on the big occasion is also important, so look at the background of athletes to find who has choked and who has delivered. It’s also worth considering what’s at stake.
For many competitors the Olympics will be the highlight of their career and they will be desperate to win gold. Yet there are sports such as tennis or golf, where the Olympics will not even be the biggest prize on offer in the sports calendar year, so the motivation could be lacking for top stars.
Our recommended sportsbook for Olympics betting is BetMGM. Though a relative newcomer on the UK scene, they have a strong pedigree, as they are one of the leading sportsbooks in the US.
This international outlook is an aid to their Olympics coverage, as is the strong odds and the investment in the brand. The website is a dream to use, while there’s also a top quality app, great betting offers and a blog site giving insightful tips.
When we conducted our review, there was already plenty of Olympics markets to bet on, so it’s BetMGM that receive our gold medal.