AFL 2025 Brownlow Medal Winner Betting – Odds, Tips & Predictions

The Brownlow Medal is the most prestigious individual award in the AFL – the Norm Smith perhaps its only contender – being awarded each year to the player adjudged to be the best (and technically, fairest) throughout the course of the home and away season. Many of the game’s elite have at least one ‘Charlie’ locked away in their trophy cabinet, and its prestige and the event that is Brownlow Medal Night makes betting on the Brownlow Medal a popular pastime. The 2025 edition of the award is shaping up as a three-horse race with Nick Daicos, Jordan Dawson and Bailey Smith leading the charge, but there is still plenty of time for that to change over the remainder of the season.

The Brownlow Medal market allows you to bet on any player to win the award, but with its punting popularity booming in recent years, there are now a plethora of other markets available. Betting on individual players to record the most votes for their team has become a fan favourite, particularly given the ability to create multis across various teams with many Brownlow Medal betting sites. Information abounds online about who might poll when, so get your spreadsheets ready for the biggest awards night in footy.

Entering the second half of the season, there are three runaway favourites and two clear chasers, but there is still plenty of time for an outsider or two to make a run. Check out the odds below.

With the bookies divided over the Brownlow Medal favourite at the time of writing, it’s safe to say a close race could be on the cards. Below, take a look at who might end up winning it.

Nick Daicos has already been unlucky not to win the Brownlow Medal two times, and he’s only played three full seasons. But after picking up 28 votes in 2023 and 38 last year, this might be his best chance yet to finally win an inevitable first Charlie – and potentially the first of multiple.

Daicos was very, very good earlier in the year, though not quite reaching the incredible standard he has set for himself over the past couple of seasons. But with the Pies winning virtually every game, he will still likely poll extremely well, and since about halfway through the season he has really turned it on. In the ten games between Rounds 13 and 22, Daicos 34 touches or more five times, and averaged 32.9 touches and a goal.

Already he has demonstrated an ability to poll very well, and in more games than not this year he will be at the forefront of the umpires’ minds. Given his consistent brilliance and the number of wins the Pies have racked up, it’s hard to see Daicos failing to poll well into the 30s once again. Some betting sites like PlayUp have him as an odds-on favourite to win and are not offering great value, but others – Bet365 chief among them – have much juicier odds at the time of writing.

Bet on Nick Daicos to win the Brownlow Medal at $2.60 with Bet365 

Noah Anderson has been the biggest mover in this market over the last few weeks, taking Bailey Smith’s in the runaway top three favourites courtesy of some electric form. From Round 11 until the time of writing, the Suns’ captain has averaged over 32 touches per game, and has five times accumulated at least 35 disposals – most of those in wins.

The Suns are having the best year in their history and will win many more games than they ever have before, so expect a lot more votes for their stars than they have received in the past. And Anderson, alongside his running mate Matt Rowell, is the best among them.

He hasn’t ever been particularly close on Brownlow Medal night, with 22 votes his best effort back in in 2023, but that was in a season in which the Suns went 9-14. This year, they will at worst flip that record upside down, and Anderson has played easily the best footy of his career. He will likely surpass his career-best vote tally by some margin and is well and truly in the mix for this year’s award, though with he and Rowell likely often having to split the votes – a little like Petracca and Oliver in their heyday – he might be hard-pressed to match some potentially very high vote tallies from his competitors.

Bet on Noah Anderson to win the Brownlow Medal at $4.25 with PlayUp

Jordan Dawson has been a consistent presence towards the top of the this market this season – inevitable when you’re the captain and best player on a team that could very well finish the season on top of the ladder. Dawson has been brilliant for years now but has never polled more than 20 votes, but having picked up that number and 18 in the past two seasons when the Crows have lost more games than they have won, he should be going well past that number in 2025.

Dawson doesn’t have the gaudy numbers of the two names above – in fact, after picking up 30+ touches in two of his first four games of the season, he hasn’t got there since. But his weapons extend far beyond an ability to simply win the ball. The Crows’ captain is a goalkicking midfielder – booting nearly one a game this year – who is capable over the head, and his ball use is a good as just about anyone in the league.

How well that translates to votes remains to be seen, but he’s polled reasonably well on an average team over the past couple of years with similar numbers. Dawson hasn’t necessarily taken a huge leap forward this year, but he has remained probably the Crows’ most pivotal player, and with them now one of the best teams in the league that should see his votes tally significantly boosted. If Daicos gets into the mid-30s he will be hard for Dawson to catch, but if the winner is closer to 30 votes he could be right in with a chance.

Bet on Jordan Dawson to win the Brownlow Medal at $6.00 with PlayUp

Who would have thought we would ever see the day where two Gold Coast players occupy spots in the top four in the Brownlow Medal betting market? If it was ever going to happen though, it’s fitting that it would be Anderson and Rowell, best friends who were drafted at picks 1 and 2 in the 2019 draft, both from the Oakleigh Chargers.

Rowell’s ability to make his mark on Brownlow night was apparent as soon as he stepped foot in the league, ridiculously earning the three votes in his second, third and fourth games at the top level. He hasn’t exactly carried on at that rate – in fact he only managed 16 more votes over the next three-and-a-half seasons, but last year was his best to date and he picked up 25 votes for his trouble.

In 2025, he has been even better, and with the Suns winning a whole lot more games it’s easy to see him polling heavily. Rowell is the kind of player that the umpires notice – in a similar mold to Cripps, he is right under their noses throughout the course of the game, as good a contested player as there is, and that generally translates to votes. Like with Anderson, he might be splitting votes with one of his compatriots in the Suns’ midfield, but of the two Rowell looks like the better value at double-figure odds.

Bet on Matt Rowell to win the Brownlow Medal at $15.00 with PlayUp

Bailey Smith’s start to life as a Cat has been impressive to say the least, though after a slower last couple of months he has drifted significantly in the Brownlow Medal betting odds. Smith was the pre-eminent ball-winner in the game for the first 15 weeks of the season, rarely failing to cross the 30-mark and regularly going well past that number.

Combined with his line-breaking ability, better-than-advertised ball use, headband and flowing mullet, he is a hard man to miss, and with the Cats on the edge of the top four as per usual, he will be getting plenty of attention from the umpires. He did, however, have a couple of less impressive performances and missed two games between Rounds 16 and 20, during which it’s likely he won’t receive a vote, so while he might be right up there prior to that he could get overrun as we near the end of the season.

But Smith is putting up a fight. A 43-possession performance in Round 21 will almost certainly yield votes while he was good the next week too. Interestingly, Smith has never picked up more than 10 votes in a season and players getting really recognised on Brownlow night often takes a year or two after they jump into the game’s elite, though with the Cats a relatively well-balanced team without any clear standout vote-getters, he should be polling plenty of them.

Bet on Bailey Smith to win the Brownlow Medal at $19.00 with PlayUp  

These are the main AFL Brownlow Medal betting markets you’ll find with most bookies.

• Outright Winner: The simplest and most common Brownlow Medal betting market, requiring you to simply pick the winner.
• Top 3 Finish: Rather than picking the outright winner, this one just requires your pick to finish in the top 3.
• Most Team Votes: This has become a really popular way to bet on the Brownlow Medal. For any of the 18 teams, you can bet on who you think will lead the vote count for that team. Many betting sites will also offer ‘Most Team Votes Without Player x’ if one player is almost certain to lead their team’s vote count.

Every man, woman and their dog has an opinion on the Brownlow Medal best bets, but while there are many ways to go about it, these are some consistent themes to keep in mind. 

• This is a midfielders’ award – Virtually exclusively, with every player this century to win it playing in the guts at least part-time, and generally all the time. 
• Wins matter – The votes don’t always go to the winning team, but more often than not most of them do, particularly in one-sided games. 
• Factor in teammates who may poll – While some players benefit from being the standout on good teams – think Lachie Neale – others might be competing with other consistent vote-getters on their team – Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca in years’ past a good example. 
• Votes are given by the umpires, not consensus – The more research you do the better, but bear in mind it’s the umpires who do the voting and they might not always be right. Just because a player got three votes according to every site you read and every metric you can imagine, doesn’t mean they will 100% get it from the umps.

According to betting sites it’s a three-horse race between Daicos, Anderson and Dawson, and while some have those three relatively close, others have Daicos way out in front. As always, it’s value we’re looking for here, not just who will win, but while Daicos is quite short particularly with sites like PlayUp, the odds available for him at other bookies are certainly enough to attract my attention.

There is no denying just how good a player Daicos is, nor how well he polls, and with no other player looking likely to get a huge number – such as Cripps last year – the Magpies superstar is going to be very tough to beat. Given the range of odds available for him it’s certainly worth doing your research – I’d be staying away at under $2 – but with well over that available at other bookies, he looks like the best bet.

Below, we’ve listed the last ten Brownlow Medal winners, as well as how many votes they polled, where they play (hint: it’s in the midfield), and how many games their team won.

2024: Patrick Cripps (Carlton), midfielder, 45 votes, 13 wins
2023: Lachie Neale (Brisbane), midfielder, 31 votes, 17 wins
2022: Patrick Cripps (Carlton), midfielder, 29 votes, 12 wins
2021: Ollie Wines (Port Adelaide), midfielder, 36 votes, 17 wins
2020: Lachie Neale (Brisbane), midfielder, 31 votes, 14 wins (from 17 games in Covid-affected season)
2019: Nat Fyfe (Fremantle), midfielder, 33 votes, 9 wins
2018: Tom Mitchell (Hawthorn), midfielder, 28 votes, 15 wins
2017: Dustin Martin (Richmond), midfielder/forward, 36 votes, 15 wins
2016: Patrick Dangerfield (Geelong), midfielder/forward, 35 votes, 17 wins
2015: Nat Fyfe (Fremantle), midfielder, 31 votes, 17 wins