Booker Prize Betting

• The Booker Prize is awarded to the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK or Ireland. 
• The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker Prize last year.  
• Booker Prize Betting will be available from the best betting sites. 

Every year since 1969 there has been a Booker Prize Literary Award. In recent times the bookmakers have latched on to the interest the prize generates and started offering betting odds on the novels.  

Booker Prize Betting Markets

The main market that the majority of the best betting sites will have is selecting the Booker Prize winner. 

However other markets can be offered or you can ask directly for prices on a range of options 

• Choose the English language novel that will win the Booker Prize this year. 
• Will the Booker Prize be won by someone born in the United Kingdom?
• Will the Booker Prize be won by a debut novelist?

How To Place A Booker Prize Bet

• Once at the bookmakers scroll to the specials market and find Booker Prize Betting
• Here you will see the list of books being offered as options to bet on.
• All you need do is click on your selection.
• This will open up the bet slip, at which point you will see confirmation of the betting odds being offered
• Now you choose your stake - most betting sites will show you how much you can expect to have returned if your prediction is correct.
• If you are happy, simply hit, PLACE BET, to confirm your selection, stake, and bet.
• You will be given a receipt for your bet and it will appear in your open bets in your account details.
• Then it's just a matter of waiting to see which of the books is chosen as the winner.

Betting Apps

You have the option to use a bookmaker betting app to place your Booker Prize bet, we review and rate the best betting apps via our betting guides. 

The betting for The Booker Prize is normally available after the longlist is revealed and then updated when the final six on the shortlist are announced.  Often the major bookies disagree on a favourite and there is plenty of movement in the Booker Prize Odds. 

Here is a round-up of the Booker Prize Betting News from our OLBG News feed. 

12th October 2022

Elizabeth Strout is now the bookmaker's favourite to win this year's Booker Prize Award ahead of next week's event. The 2022 Booker Prize winner will be awarded on 17th October with the first public event with the winner set for Thursday 20th at Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall. Smarkets have made Elizabeth Strout's 'Oh William!' the 3/1 favourite just ahead of 'The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida' by Shahan Karunatilaka.

1st September 2022

Alan Garner's Treacle Walker is now the 5/1 favourite with betting sites to win the 2022 Booker Prize Award. Walker's booked has received massive critical acclaim with one report in the Guardian calling it the "book of a lifetime". Maddie Mortimer's Maps of our Spectacular Bodies is joint-favourite at 5/1 with some betting sites. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout is just behind in the betting market with Bet365 at 6/1, with 13 candidates in the odds. Those 13 candidates will be whittled down to just 6 nominees next week on the 6th of September.

4th August 2022

Alan Garner's Treacle Walker is now the 9/2 favourite with bookmakers to win the 2022 Booker Prize Award. Walker's book has received massive critical acclaim with one report in the Guardian calling it the "book of a lifetime". Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout is just behind in the betting market at 5/1, with 13 candidates in the odds. Bet365 have a full list of odds available for the Prize, with each longlist nominee given odds.

15th September 2021

There were 7 disappointed authors from the Booker prize betting yesterday as their chances were killed off with the final shortlist of 6 being announced. The biggest to have been dropped being Kazuo Ishiguru's Klara and the Sun which had been Third Favourite at the shortlist 13 stage. Rachel Cusk's Second Place will not be gaining that position this year either after being dropped. Damon Galgut's 'The Promise' remains the favourite to win at 5/2 with bookmakers, closely followed by Richard Power's highly acclaimed 'Bewilderment' at 3/1, the remainder of the odds suggest this is rather a two-horse-race.

31st August 2021

As August comes to a close there are 13 excited authors on the Booker prize long list waiting expectedly and hoping their publication is not one of the seven eliminated as the Booker prize shortlist is announced on 14th September. There are currently there joint-favourites all being offered by Bookmakers at the same 11/2 odds to win the prize including Klara and the Sun from Kazuo Ishiguro. The Japanese-born British author has had multiple nominations in his career and has a previous booker prize win under his belt for 'Remains of the Day' back in 1989. Klara and the Sun is currently 11/2 to win representing a 15% chance as per bookmakers' odds. There is little to choose between the given probabilities of the expected 6 books to make the shortlist on 14th September. 

The Booker Prize is a truly international award as you can see by the winners below. 

It can help our booker prize betting decisions to research various aspects of previous booker prize winners.

Five authors have won the Booker Prize on two occasions.

To give you some insight into betting odds and percentages here are the betting odds prior to the winner being announced. 

2022

2021

2020

The winner was announced last year as The Tomb Of The Sand by Geetanjali Shree translated by Daisy Rockwell. In 2021 it was At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop and translated by Anna Moschovakis. 

The £50,000 International Booker Prize money is equally split between the author and translator. 

With jury voting, it will always be a subjective opinion, and with human beings prone to emotion the most moving novel often seems to do well.

Since the Booker Prize was created in 1969 it has seen its fair share of controversy with both at times judges and authors questioning the fairness of the award and whether it is appropriate to rate books. 

In 2019 the judges went off message by awarding the prize to two authors, despite being told that this was against the Booker rules. 

In  June 2020 there was another literary furore when the Booker Foundation Vice President Lady Nicholson was removed from her honorary position. 

The Peer had been criticized by writers who accused her of homophobia.

Authors cited her for voting against the Same-Sex Marriage Bill, and for as some saw it her controversial comments on social media in relation to the trans community.