The bookies are weighing in on the Booker.
The winner of this year’s Booker Prize, the prestigious British fiction award, is set to be announced on Sunday. And if you’re in a country where betting on such things is legal, the oddsmakers have some advice for you.
The online gambling company Betway has Irish author Paul Lynch—one of three Pauls up for the prize—as its favorite to take home the Iris for his novel Prophet Song, according to the betting platform OLGB.
Lynch has 9-4 odds to win the prize, and is followed by American novelist Paul Harding, whose This Other Eden is at 7-2. Another American, Jonathan Escoffery, isn’t far behind, with his If I Survive You given 9-2 odds.
Tied with 5-1 odds are Sarah Bernstein’s Study For Obedience and Chetna Maroo’s Western Lane. That leaves Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, which was a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize, as the underdog at 7-1.
Betway isn’t the only gambling company posting odds—the website Oddschecker has a table listing other outfits’ take on the prize, although they’re all pretty similar, which suggests a win for Lynch seems likely to bookish bookies.
But book fans and gamblers will have to wait until the prize ceremony in London on Nov. 26, which will be broadcast live on YouTube starting at 4 p.m Eastern time, to find out.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
