AFL 2024 Brownlow Medal Winner Betting – Odds, Tips & Predictions

With the home and away season now done and dusted, we officially have a Brownlow Medal winner – we just don’t know who it is yet. As the year has neared its end, the award has – at least according to the bookies – become a race in two (or perhaps more accurately, two and a half). But as we have seen plenty in the past, the most coveted individual award in footy does not always pan out exactly as expected. Patrick Cripps and Nick Daicos will be tough to beat while Lachie Neale has established himself as a clear third favourite, but the likes of Marcus Bontempelli and Caleb Serong could very easily poll heavily and put themselves in the mix. Below, we take a look at all the favourites to take out the Brownlow Medal.  

Cripps has been there or thereabouts in the betting for most of the year, but a few massive games towards the end of the season has seen him establish himself as a pretty short-priced favourite. As he has been for year, Cripps is right amongst the pre-eminent contested ball winners in the game, his massive frame and insatiable hunger for the footy making him extremely difficult to stop around stoppage. Unsurprisingly, he comfortably led the league in contested possessions this season, picking up 360 of them in total – the next most was Tom Green with 323. This has been one of Cripps’ most consistent seasons of his career, with only a small handful of quiet games – none of which came in the last two months or so of the season. He ended the year with nine consecutive games of 25 or more possessions and at least 14 contested possessions, and a few of them stand out as very likely three-vote efforts – not least his 35-touch game against the Eagles in Round 23 with the team’s season on the line. Carlton’s run of losses towards the end of the season certainly doesn’t help his chances, but he is still a chance of polling in a number of those, and as he has shown before, he is generally pretty popular with the umpires. Cripps, of course, won the Brownlow just two years back with 29 votes while he picked up 22 this year, and there is every chance that he will go past 30 this year. At just over $2, however, he might not be great value, but he is a really good chance of winning his second Charlie. 

Bet on Patrick Cripps to win the Brownlow Medal at $2.50 with Unibet

It seems like a fait accompli that Nick Daicos will end up as a Brownlow Medallist, and very possibly a multiple-time winner. In just his second season last year he probably should have won, but no votes in the last six weeks (in three of which he didn’t play) ultimately saw him fall just short. For a period this year he was actually a little way down the pecking order, dropping to around $15 at one point – when some – ahem, this column – recommend him as the best bet on the board. But he has shortened and shortened and shortened to the point where he is now sub-$3, with a couple of 40-possession games and plenty of others with 30+ and a goal or two likely to yield him votes. Of course, the Magpies didn’t have the season that they did last year and that is likely to mean their team overall will garner less votes than they did in 2023, which could hurt Daicos’ chances, but he has done more than enough this year to warrant winning his first Brownlow Medal, and given that he picked up 28 votes in just his second year in the league last year, it’s safe to say that the umpires are well aware of his prowess. I would leave him alone at the short odds on offer for him, but he would be a worthy winner. 

Bet on Nick Daicos to win the Brownlow Medal at $2.65 with Unibet

Speaking of players who the umpires are well aware of, Lachie Neale is perhaps the most accomplished vote-getters in the league and is a chance this year of joining the extremely exclusive three-Brownlow club in a few weeks’ time. Neale has been super consistent this year, and importantly, has had a lot of really big games along the way. Ten times in his 22 home and away appearances, Neale racked up at least 33 disposals, and with games like his 36-possession, three-goal effort in Round 18, 34-possession, two-goal performance the week after, 38-and-2 back in Round 14 and 40-and-1 in the final round of the season, there appears to be plenty of very likely two or three vote games throughout the season for him. Also in Neale’s favour is the fact that the Lions, having won 14.5 games, won the vast majority of their games after a slow start to the season, and as always he doesn’t have all that many teammates to take votes away from him. Certainly plenty of other Lions will poll well, but unlike a player such as Isaac Heeney, who is competing with the likes of Chad Warner and Errol Gulden, Neale is clearly the most prolific vote-getter in his team. He is always right under the noses of the umpires and very rarely puts in a bad game, so in Brisbane’s plethora of wins after the first few weeks of the season he will be in the mix for votes virtually every week. Neale has secured at least 26 votes in four of his last five seasons, and was probably better this year than he was last year, when he won his second Brownlow Medal. Bookmakers have him a fair way behind Cripps and Daicos in the betting, but based on how he has polled in the past, he looks like very good value at over $6. 

Bet on Lachie Neale to win the Brownlow Medal at $7.00 with BoomBet

Marcus Bontempelli may well be on the way to one of the best careers in recent memory without winning a Brownlow Medal, but he is not out of the race in 2024. Regarded by many as the best player in the league, he has gone very close a couple of times in the last three years, picking up a huge 33 votes in 2021 but falling short of Ollie Wines, and then managing 29 last year. This season he has continued on his merry way, putting together, as he always does, numerous massive games in which it is very hard to see him not getting three votes. He kicked 31 goals playing out of the midfield in 2024, picking up 30+ touches and kicking multiple goals in five games and going close to replicating those numbers in quite a few others. What’s more, the Bulldogs had a strong season, winning plenty of games in a canter, and in those games they are likely to potentially secure all six votes – with Bontempelli very possibly getting three in a whole lot of them. He’s a quintessential three-vote getter – when he had 33 a couple of years ago, it came through nine BOGs and three two-vote games, while last year he was given the three votes on six occasions. Expect more of the same this year. He will poll the three votes in a lot of games, and if he can pick up one or two here and there then he could well be getting close to, or even passing, the 30-mark once again. That would have him right in the frame to win what would be a very well-deserved first Brownlow Medal. A slow-ish end to the season might end up costing him, but at long odds he is far from the worst bet out there. 

Bet on Marcus Bontempelli to win the Brownlow Medal at $15.00 with PlayUp

Caleb Serong flew into relevance on Brownlow Medal night last season, picking up 24 votes after having accumulated a total of just 11 in his previous three years in the league, and this year he is primed to go past that number in what was his best season in the league to date. One of the most prolific ball-winners in the game, Serong started the year like a house on fire with 46 touches in his first game and 35 in his second, and while he only hit 35 three more times for the season, he very rarely put in a bad game. In fact, only four times did he have less than 25 touches (three of those occasions coming in the last three games of the home and away season) but he booted three goals in arguably a best on ground performance in one of them, and two in another. Always finding a way to impact the game, Serong is the Dockers’ most obvious vote-getter, and particularly in their wins he would rarely not be in the best five or six players on the ground. He doesn’t have the stand out games like somebody such as Bontempelli, and his vote-getting ability in each game is a little more reliant on whether or not there were other standout performances. But he is exactly the kind of player who could be picking up multiple votes in the majority of Dockers’ wins and a handful of losses. Last year he polled in exactly half of the games in which he played including, incredibly, eight of his last nine, and there is a good chance he goes close to replicating the first part of that once again this season. Having played all 23 games he could easily poll in 13+, and while he does probably look likely to fall a little short given the vote-getting capacity of some of the above names, it would be no great surprise to see him pushing 30 votes and putting himself right in the mix. 

Bet on Caleb Serong to win the Brownlow Medal at $21.00 with PlayUp

This has been Zach Merrett’s best season in the league, and there was a period of time during which he established himself as a very legitimate Brownlow Medal chance this season. But his Bombers, of course, dropped off significantly over the last couple of months of the season, and while Merrett continued to play pretty well, he probably won’t poll all that well for much of the second half of the year. That will make it hard for him in a year with potentially plenty of high vote-getters, but he should still be picking up more than the career-high 20 that he managed back in 2021. The Bombers lost just two of their first 11 games, and Merrett was either their best player or right up there in most games during that time. He still had plenty of good games in the back half of the year, too, picking up at least 30 touches in four of his last seven games, but rarely does he have standout performances the likes of which are going to yield three or even two votes in games that the Bombers lose. That means that there is a good chance Merrett finds himself right up there in the top handful of players halfway or so into the season, but the chances of him keeping pace with Cripps, Daicos and co are probably pretty slim. It has been a really good year for Merrett even if it ultimately ended in disappointment for his Bombers, but even if he is a good chance of finishing in the top five or so on Brownlow night, it is hard to imagine him winning it. 

Bet on Zach Merrett to win the Brownlow Medal at $34.00 with BoomBet

Errol Gulden has been second fiddle to Isaac Heeney in terms of Swans’ Brownlow hopes for most of this season, but with his teammate getting suspended a few weeks ago, the prodigiously talented wingman now leads the charge as the league’s top team’s best hope. Gulden was very nearly a surprise winner last year when he polled 27 votes, coming home with an absolute wet sail to poll an incredible 22 of them in Sydney’s last ten games. That will obviously be difficult to replicate, but he has a lot of games in which he looks likely to poll this year. Four times he picked up 35 touches or more, while in 11 of his 23 games he had at least 24 touches and at least one goal. Of course, the Swans also won more games than anyone else in the league, and aside from their late season patch which saw them lose five of six games, they should be picking up the vast majority of votes most weeks. Going against Gulden, of course, is the fact that he has plenty of competition for votes. As mentioned, Heeney is not in the running for the Brownlow given he has been suspended, but he can still poll votes and he will likely do that plenty, particularly in the first half of the season. Chad Warner, too, is capable of polling heavily, while a few other standout performances in games in which Gulden played well might also cost him; nine goals for Joel Amartey in Round 15 when Gulden had 35 touches being one such example. Gulden hit the scoreboard a little less this year than he did last, but he has still been a prolific ball winner all year, has kicked 15 goals, and as we know, uses the ball as well as probably anyone in the league – Nick Daicos perhaps his main rival. He is an underdog for a reason, but he is a very noticeable player and could easily outperform expectations once again. 

Bet on Errol Gulden to win the Brownlow Medal at $51.00 with UniBet

Since he entered the league in 2020, it has been clear that Tom Green is destined for a pretty damn good career, and at the age of just 23 he has already established himself as one of the best in the business. He probably didn’t take a huge step forward this season, but that’s not necessarily too harsh of a criticism given how good he already was this year. There are still strings that he can add to his bow; Green is a fantastic contested mark and should really be the kind of midfielder capable of going forward and kicking a lot of goals, so eight of them this year is a little bit disappointing. But while goal-kicking mids are invaluable and tend to attract plenty of attention from the umpires, what Green does in and around the footy is still more than enough to pick up plenty of Brownlow votes. He finished the league second in possessions – and that’s with one three-possession game when he was injured early – picking up at least 30 in 15 of his 23 games. Between Rounds 16 and 21 he had 33 or more in every game, while he also finished the season with 40 in Round 24 and 37 in Round 25, so expect him to come home like a freight train, particularly with the Giants winning seven of their last eight. Like a couple of other players on this list, he does have plenty of competition for votes on a Giants team littered with talent, and that could cost him. But Green was second in the league in possessions and second in contested possessions, and plays on a team that finished in the top four. Sixteen is the most votes he has ever polled in a season, and he will likely go well past that this year. It might be a bit of a stretch for him to finish on top, but as far as really long odds outsiders go, he is not the worst. 

Bet on Tom Green to win the Brownlow Medal at $51.00 with PlayUp

Adam Treloar has never had any trouble finding the footy, but this year he was as prolific as ever, and was arguably more damaging with ball in hand than he has been in the past, too. He finished fourth in the league for possessions while playing a game less than all of those above him, leading the league in average touches per game with a huge 31.68. He had 30 or more in 15 of 22 games, and in seven of those hit the 35-mark. What’s more, he hit the scoreboard as heavily as he ever has with 15 goals throughout the course of the season. Treloar was instrumental in the Bulldogs’ run over the back half of the year, and importantly, the bulk of his really good games came in wins, so expect him to feature heavily in those games. Of course, he plays second fiddle in the Bulldogs’ talented midfield to Bontempelli and that may well be reflected on Brownlow night, particularly given that Treloar has not typically featured all that heavily in the votes throughout the course of his career. His best is 21 back in 2016 while he managed 18 in 2019, but in none of his other 12 seasons has he picked up more than 11 votes. For someone who has been in the league so long that is a trend which will be difficult to overcome enough to poll the potentially 30+ votes needed to win this year, so it’s easy to see why he is at such long odds. Still, he has had a great season and could easily poll more heavily than he ever has in the past – but probably not heavily enough to end Brownlow night with the Charlie around his neck. 

Bet on Adam Treloar to win the Brownlow Medal at $67.00 with PlayUp

There is plenty of competition for the title of Port Adelaide’s most important midfielder, and over the past couple of years it has mostly been Zak Butters and Connor Rozee fighting for the title. But Jason Horne-Francis has been slowly throwing his hat into the ring, having consistently improved over his two years at the club and three years in the league. This was comfortably the best of his three seasons in the league, with the game-breaking ability which saw him taken at pick one in the 2021 draft becoming increasingly evident at AFL level. He averaged 22 touches per game this year, a fair way below a number of the above names, but he is extremely damaging when he is on and also booted 25 goals – kicking at least one in all but five of his games in the home and away season. Horne-Francis is a player who can have a massive impact without peppering the stats sheet, as he showed last year when he accumulated 16 votes in just his second season with six of the seven games in which he polled coming from 25 touches or less (though it’s worth noting, one of them legitimately seemed like an error when he polled three votes from a 13-possession, zero-goal game). Still, he has been a lot better this year than he was last and logic would suggest that he will poll a fair few more than the 16 votes he managed last year in 2024. As good as he is already and as dominant a player as he is likely to be in this league for many years to come, he is not yet as consistently at the level of many of the above players and a Brownlow Medal this year is probably a stretch. But it was the best season of Horne-Francis’ young career, and he could easily be scooting past 20 votes on Brownlow night. 

Bet on Jason Horne-Francis to win the Brownlow Medal at $101.00 with UniBet

If the bookies are to be believed, this Brownlow Medal is a race in two, but at such short odds it’s really hard to back either Cripps or Daicos no matter how good their seasons have been. At longer odds there are a couple of decent looking outsiders – Bontempelli, for one, looks like slight overs at $15 – but the standout for me is Lachie Neale as the comfortable third favourite. Past history suggests Neale has to basically just show up to poll votes, and he did a hell of a lot more than that this year. He was consistently very, very good on a team which won a lot of games, and has shown in the past that he polls better than anyone else in the league. He has been better this season than he was last when he won the Brownlow, so it would be no surprise to see him pick up 30+ votes and enter extremely elite company with a third Brownlow Medal – something just four other players have ever managed.

Most Brownlow Medals by player

• 3 – Haydn Bunton Sr. (Fitzroy), Dick Reynolds (Essendon), Bob Skilton (South Melbourne), Ian Stewart (St Kilda/Richmond)

Most Brownlow Medals by club

• 14 – Sydney Swans/South Melbourne (1940, 1949, 1955, 1959, 1963, 1968, 1970, 1977, 1981, 1986, 1988, 1995, 2003, 2006)

Most Brownlow Medal votes in a season

• 3–2–1 voting system: 36 – Dustin Martin (Richmond, 2017), Ollie Wines (Port Adelaide, 2021)
• All voting systems: 59 – Graham Teasdale (South Melbourne, 1977)

Most Brownlow Medal votes in an entire career

• 262 – Gary Ablett Jr. (Geelong/Gold Coast)

More Brownlow Medal votes than AFL/VFL matches

•  Haydn Bunton, Sr.
• Nat Fyfe