Brownlow Medal 2026 Odds Updates: Round-by-Round Market Movement, Contenders & Final Predictions

Ryan Tucker

Editor

Last updated: Wed 16 Sep 2026 09:26

Ryan Tucker 48 minutes ago

Share this article

Nick Daicos enters the 2026 Brownlow as the $1.01 favourite after a dominant season.
Market odds shifted dramatically due to team results and injuries to contenders.
Daicos' consistency left no real opposition by count night, ensuring his victory.

Nick Daicos of the Magpies poses with the Leigh Matthews Trophy for Most Valuable Player award. (Photo by James Wiltshire/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Brownlow Medal 2026

The 2026 Brownlow Medal is counted at Crown Palladium on Monday 21 September, with Channel 7 and 7plus coverage from 7:30pm AEST.

The count itself starts at 8:00pm with Nick Daicos going into the night at $1.01 favourite, Bailey Smith at $34.00 is the next best price.

That final board hides one of the most volatile Brownlow seasons in recent memory. Daicos was a $7 joint-favourite before a ball was kicked, drifted as far as $4.75, shared a three-way $4 tie with Marcus Bontempelli and Bailey Smith after Round 11, and only broke clear for good from Round 17 onwards.

This guide tracks every meaningful price move from the pre-season market through to the current board, and explains what caused each one.

Brownlow Medal 2026 Exotic Betting Tips

Current Brownlow Medal 2026 Odds

2026 Brownlow Medal Winner	Odds
Nick Daicos	$1.01
Bailey Smith	$34.00
Marcus Bontempelli	$46.00
Patrick Cripps	$61.00
Will Ashcroft	$76.00

Odds correct at 2026-09-16 from Picklebet

Gaps between bookmakers for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th placegetters are large and have moved significantly through the start of the AFL Finals series even though no more votes are cast.

Pre-Season Brownlow Medal Odds

2026 Brownlow Medal Winner (opening market)	Odds
Matt Rowell	$7.00
Nick Daicos	$7.00
Marcus Bontempelli	$15.00
Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera	$16.00
Bailey Smith	$19.00
Jordan Dawson	$26.00
Finn Callaghan	$26.00

Matt Rowell was the joint favourite to go back to back while Nick Daicos was right there with him after finishing 2nd two years running and being the quickest player to reach 100 career Brownlow Votes.

Rounds 0 to 8: Bontempelli takes over, then hands it back

Nick Daicos began the season with 41 disposals against St Kilda in Opening Round and a perfect ten coaches’ votes but the market still would not settle on him.

Round	Market leaders and notable moves
Opening Round	Daicos favourite with Matt Rowell, Marcus Bontempelli $15, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera $16, Bailey Smith $19
Round 1	Daicos $4, Bontempelli $5, Christian Petracca $6, Noah Anderson $17, Wanganeen-Milera $21, Gulden drops out injured
Round 2	Bontempelli $3.25 takes favouritism, Petracca out to $34 with a three-to-four-week injury
Round 3	Bontempelli and Daicos tied at $3.00, Zak Butters $21, Caleb Serong $26, Bailey Smith $26
Round 4	Bontempelli $2.50 clear favourite, Butters, Serong and Smith all $17
Round 5	Daicos retakes top spot as Bontempelli eases
Round 6	Daicos $3, Bontempelli $6, Smith $6, Butters $15, Petracca $13, Isaac Heeney $13, Harry Sheezel $41
Round 7	Daicos $2.60, Bontempelli $5.50, Smith $5.50, Kysaiah Pickett $19
Round 8	Daicos drifts to $3.40, Bontempelli in to $4.50, Petracca $10.50

The Round 4 move to $2.50 was the shortest price Marcus Bontempelli reached all season. It came off a Bulldogs win over Easter and a run of high-possession, high-impact games. Daicos’ drift to $3.40 after Round 8 followed Collingwood’s 93-93 draw with Hawthorn, and it marked the low point of his season in market terms.

Note what the market was doing here. It was pricing team results as heavily as individual output. Collingwood’s inconsistency cost Daicos far more in the odds than his numbers justified.

Rounds 9 to 16: Three-way tie and most volatile stretch of the season

Round	Market leaders and notable moves
Round 9	Bontempelli $4.00 leads, Daicos $4.75, Smith $8.00, Luke Jackson $26 enters
Round 10	Daicos and Bontempelli level again, Smith, Butters and Petracca close behind
Round 11	Three-way tie with Daicos $4, Bontempelli $4, Smith $4, Butters $12, Petracca $12, Jackson out to $41
Round 12	Smith $4.00 holds the tie, Petracca $9.00, Max Holmes $26 enters, Patrick Cripps $41 enters
Round 13	Smith drifts to $4.50, Daicos and Bontempelli $4, Heeney $9, Pickett $34
Round 14	Daicos $4.50 outright favourite, Smith $5, Bontempelli $5.50, Heeney $6, Dawson $13, Jackson $21
Round 15	Daicos $3.50, Bontempelli $6, Heeney $6, Smith out to $8 after missing a game, Jackson $13, Dawson $13
Round 16	Bontempelli in to $5.50, Heeney $8, Smith $9, Jackson $14

Round 11 is the pivot point of the whole season. Three players shared $4 favouritism, and a fourth group sat inside $12. ESPN’s predictor after Round 14 had Daicos only 1.5 votes clear of Smith, four clear of Heeney and 4.5 clear of Bontempelli, with Daicos being priced at $4.50, Smith $5.50, Heeney and Bontempelli $6 and Dawson $10.

Bailey Smith’s Round 15 drift from $4 to $8 is the single largest negative move of the season for a live contender, and it came from one missed match rather than any drop in form. Brownlow markets punish absences hard, because a missed game is a guaranteed zero in a 24-round count.

By Round 13 Daicos was already 35 coaches’ votes clear of Patrick Cripps at the top of the AFL Coaches Association count, on 93 to Cripps’ 58. The umpire-vote market had not caught up with what the coaches were seeing.

Rounds 17 to 24: the market surrenders

Round	Market leaders and notable moves
Round 17	Daicos $1.80, Bontempelli out to $9, Heeney $9
Round 18	Daicos $1.57, Bontempelli $9.50, Dawson $11, Heeney $11, Butters $18 after a serious injury
Round 19	Daicos $1.45, Bontempelli in from $9.50 to $8.50, Smith equal third with Dawson and Heeney
Round 20	Daicos $1.20 after another perfect ten coaches’ votes and a new single-season record, Bontempelli out to $10.00
Round 22	Daicos $1.01 with two rounds left
Round 24	Daicos $1.01, Bontempelli $51, Smith $51, Cripps $67, Ashcroft $81

The collapse from $3.50 after Round 15 to $1.01 after Round 22 took seven rounds. The trigger was Daicos’ Round 20 performance against Adelaide, where he collected a perfect ten coaches’ votes and set a new single-season coaches’ vote record. From that point the second line became a market for placings rather than a market for winners.

Two late moves are worth flagging. Bailey Smith shortened back into outright second at some bookmakers, levelling at $12 in early September, and Patrick Cripps re-entered the top five off Carlton’s finals run. Neither move reflects new vote information. Both reflect money following narrative in the fortnight between the last round and count night.

Contenders to watch on count night

Nick Daicos - Twenty-two matches averaging 34.9 disposals, 10.7 contested possessions, 5.7 clearances and 24 goals. He reached 30 or more disposals in 15 of his first 18 games, three of those above 40. Our predictions have him about 10 votes clear of the Bont. At 1.01 there is no betting value left, and there is no realistic path to defeat either.

Marcus Bontempelli - Held favouritism outright at $2.50 after Round 4 and shared it at $4 through Rounds 10 to 13. There is some disagreement between different prediction models and is exactly why the second-line prices differ so widely across books. But we have him in 2nd just ahead of Smith.

Bailey Smith - Smith was consistently the best player on the ground for Geelong but sacrificed points through missing games with injury and a couple of quiet ones through the middle of the season.

Patrick Cripps - Entered the market at $41 after Round 12 and has been shortened repeatedly since, reaching all the way down to $19. He is predicted at 28 votes and already owns the record haul of 45 votes from 2024, which sustains support at prices that the vote projections do not.

Will Ashcroft - Named in early-season previews as the most likely young player to disrupt the market, and he finished the season projected on 23 votes with Brisbane winning consistently. He never traded shorter than the third line and closes at $76.

What moved the 2026 Brownlow market

Three factors explain almost every price change across the season.

Team results moved prices more than individual output. Daicos drifted to $3.40 after a draw and $4.75 after a Collingwood loss, in weeks where his own numbers were unchanged. Collingwood finished ninth on 12-9-2 and exited in the second wildcard final, losing to the Western Bulldogs by three points.

Missed matches moved prices hardest. Petracca went from $6 to $34 across Round 2 on injury news alone. Smith doubled from $4 to $8 on one absence in Round 15. Butters was still listed at $18 after Round 18 despite an injury that ended his count.

Coaches’ votes led the umpire market by roughly five rounds. Daicos led the AFLCA count on 74 votes after Round 13 while still trading at $4. Anyone tracking coaches’ votes had a clear read on the count well before the market reflected it.

Verdict

2026 Brownlow Medal

Nick Daicos wins the 2026 Brownlow Medal. Every public predictor has him clear, he polled across a career-best statistical season, and the market has priced him at 1.01 since Round 22. There is nothing to back at that price, and nothing to oppose either.