Will Betting Help Make People Care About the Oscars Again?

Posted on: March 13, 2026, 08:07h. 

Last updated on: March 13, 2026, 08:10h.

• One Battle After Another betting favourite for Best Picture at DraftKings
• Michael B. Jordan and Timothée Chalamet duelling it out for Best Actor
• Jessie Buckley looks to be a betting lock for Best Actress

Television viewership numbers for the Oscars have been a steady downward track for years now, from over 40 million viewers in 2014. Last year’s drew just over 18 million. Fewer people going to movie theatres to see product, fragmentation of media, there are many reasons for the decline. Betting on the winners might be a way to draw those numbers back up, said DraftKings Director of Race & Sports Operations Johnny Avello.

Oscars Odds

Avello, one of the pioneers in setting odds for the Oscars and other entertainment awards, going back 30 years, knows a little bit about all of this. Plus, he’s a huge movie buff himself, having watched most of the Best Picture list for Sunday night’s awards show (One Battle After Another, Marty Supreme, F1, The Secret Agent, Sinners, Hamnet, Train Dreams, Frankenstein, Sentimental Value and Bugonia).

(No surprise, Avello said he was a big fan of 2019’s Uncut Gems, starring Adam Sandler, and directed by the Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny, a movie that had a big sports betting component to it. Josh Safdie directed Marty Supreme, and has been nominated for Best Director.)

Casino.org interviewed Avello about topics like how sportsbooks set odds for events like the Oscars, and the biggest contenders across major categories for this year’s show.

Best Picks

At DraftKings, One Battle After Another is at -400 for Best Picture, followed by Sinners at +275, Hamnet +2000, Marty Supreme +4000, Sentimental Value +6500, Train Dreams +10000, Frankenstein +10000, Bugonia +10000, The Secret Agent +20000, and F1 +20000.

Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) is -185 for Best Actor, with Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme)  +150 and Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another) at +1200. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) is -3500 for Best Actress, Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) +1200 and Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue) at +2500.

Sean Penn (One Battle After Another) is the big favourite for Best Supporting Actor at -350, and Amy Madigan (Weapons) is currently the betting favourite for Best Supporting Actress,  at -140. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another) is the big betting favourite at -2500 for Best Director (Safdie is +3500).

Penn a Betting Favourite

Avello said out of the Best Picture nominated movies he has seen, Sinners is the best, but One Battle After Another has been the betting favourite since October.

Usually the favourite doesn’t hold up this long, but this one has,” he said. “We do have money on Sinners. My family saw (Marty Supreme), I haven’t seen it, but I don’t go by them. They’re white picket fence people. If the movie doesn’t end happily ever after, they don’t like it. I look at movies a different way.”

People can bet the Oscars on DraftKings in Ontario, Michigan, New Jersey, Indiana, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri and Puerto Rico.

Prediction Markets

DraftKings has a prediction market component now, so technically they are offering Oscars betting everywhere.

Betting on the Oscars will never be on the level of the NFL, but Avello added it’s popular, an additional attraction to their menu.

“It’s a big night for movie buffs and people just in an entertainment world in general,” he said. “So, we’ll continue to do things like this.”

Betting could be a solution for those faltering ratings.

“It very well could be,” said Avello. “People love to watch an event and have action on it. There’s nothing like it. It’s a good feeling, it’s fun, and so I could see that very well happening. Maybe this year we’ll see Oscar viewership be much higher than it’s been the last couple of years, because it really has fallen off.”

Declining Viewership

What goes into setting odds for movies and actors, for sportsbooks?

It’s about scouring the internet,” said Avello. “If some of the movies are out there, you can watch them, but a lot of them are not available that early. For the ones that are, you can view them. You look at what some of the experts are saying. Then we put up movies in order of what we think is best to worst, and put the odds up, and adjust those odds as money come in. And then as awards shows happen, we continuously adjust them. Award shows make a difference.

“The reasons Michael B. Jordan has made this huge move (for Best Actor), from being an $8 underdog to a $2 favourite is because he won the SAG Award. The SAG Award is the top of the heap when it comes to acting awards.”

Penn’s in good shape, since Best Supporting Actor nominees Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value) and Delroy Lindo (Sinners) weren’t nominated for a SAG Award, Avello added (although Benicio del Toro in One Battle After Another and Jacob Elordi for Frankenstein were).

SAG Awards Impact

“If there’s one favourite that’s a shorter price, that might be worth taking a shot at, that may be it (Penn),” he said. Madigan has been getting a real push of late for Best Supporting Actress, he added.

Our picks? Jordan for Actor, Buckley for Actress, Penn for Best Supporting actor, Madigan for Best Supporting Actress, the great Paul Thomas Anderson, recognized for some of the most epochal movies in American film history, going back to Boogie Nights, for Director, and Sinners for Movie.

Anderson was given the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in February, an indicator of likely what is to come Sunday night, Avello said.

“Through my career doing these Oscars, which goes back to 1994, the biggest surprise has usually come from the supporting side,” he said.