Academy Awards Host Betting Odds Favor No Host At All

• Betting odds favor this happening again, giving No Official Host -200 odds.
• The Academy Awards have not had a host for the past two years.

LAS VEGAS - Next year’s Academy Awards are almost nine months away, but that’s hardly too soon for bettors to make some money wagering on them.

The Oscars have gone without a host for two years running now, and it seems that this pattern could continue.

Many will remember that the original reason that the Oscars went without a host in 2019 was due to Kevin Hart’s controversial opinions, and the subsequent dropping of him as a host.

But 2019’s Oscars were generally regarded as good, despite the absence of a celebrity host for the first time in almost two decades.

This was repeated in 2020, with a rotating cast of presenters - none of which were permanent hosts of the Oscars.

So, why does this matter?

Because the sportsbooks have already placed odds on who will be the 2021 Academy Awards host.

At the top is No Official Host, which seems to be a good bet. The last two Oscars have been widely regarded as good shows, and neither has had an official host.

It could simply be that this is what the Oscars look like now - no host, just a rotating cast of major celebrities presenting various awards and entertaining the audience.

The online sportsbooks certainly seem to think so, with -200 odds putting No Official Host as favored against the entire field.

As far as people who could be the official host, the top contenders are a pair of female comedians in Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph.

Both Wiig and Rudolph have +750 odds and are the only people with odds shorter than +1000 on the entire odds board.

There are a couple of fun longshot bets as well, so let’s check out the people with the longest odds:

At the bottom of the oddsboards we have this group of four possible presenters, all with +3300 odds. They don’t appear to have much in common beyond being well-known figures in Hollywood, but either not high profile enough to host or not particularly interested.

Overall, entertainment bettors would be wise to consider whether or not the Oscars will have a host at all - that seems to be the crux of the issue at play here.

With -200 odds, No Official Host is a significant favorite, and before figuring out which host to bet on, bettors should figure out whether there will be a host at all.