Oscar Betting Odds

Everyone is invested in tonight’s 80th Annual Academy Awards. Some, however, are more invested than others.

Online gambling sites thrive on days like these. They offer betting odds for the event, its winners and just as they did for the Super Bowl a month ago, offer betting odds on quirky categories.

Betting on Winners
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Supporting Roles and all the major categories are up for grabs. As they will be announced at tonight’s Oscar Ceremony, so will bettors find out if they won the windfall.

This year is especially interesting. The suspense over the mere event, whether it would take place or not due to the writers’ strike, has mounted with a close race between several exceptional movies.

Competing for the Best Picture award are No Country for Old Men (the Coen brothers much talked about movie), There Will Be Blood (Daniel Day Lewis showing off another accent from his arsenal), Juno (the non-bloody option), Atonement (the British rep), and Michael Clayton (a ceremony is not complete without George Clooney).

Tight races offer decent size payouts, more so than sure bets, as Day-Lewis seems to lead in the Best Actor category, which only an upset earns bettors a substantial pot.

“Other” Betting Options
Then there are the proposition bets. Prop bets are exclusive to online gambling sites. As was the case on Super Bowl night, they are quite all over the place at that.

This year gamblers can bet on how many Oscar Award winners will go over time on their acceptance speech and be interrupted by music; what topics will host Jon Stewart make jokes about (namely whether Cuba’s Fidel Castro will be one such); and will anyone fall as they walk over to accept the award.

Oscar Betting Promos
Competing over who offers the quirkiest betting odds is actually about drawing gamblers to the sites. Sports books and odd betting sites have not neglected online promotions and bonuses for Oscar betting, though.

Signup bonuses and special promotions await gamblers at the sites. They include 10% signup bonuses, along with free movie tickets for an entire year and $10 concession stand vouchers (Sportsbook.com); 20% and 10% signup bonuses (Bookmaker.com and Bodog, respectively); and more.

You pick the site and you pick the winner.