The Opening Ceremony and "Parade of Nations" on the Seine mark the official start of the 2024 Summer Olympics, also known as the Games of XXXIII Olympiad, in Paris this Friday.
329 events in 32 sports will include nearly 11K competitors at the Paris Olympics. August 11 is the last day to play the games.
It's not anticipated that US oddsmakers will experience a boom in business during the Olympics, despite the fact that there will be an endless supply of sports over the next 16 days, both live and rerun during primetime. Even though basketball, golf, and tennis are among the main Olympic sports that are well-liked by gamblers, the majority of the competitions are specialized and not very well-known to the general American public.
"I don’t expect the handle to be especially big primarily for one simple reason: Gamblers like to bet on things that they know,” Jay Zagorsky, a clinical associate professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, told ESPN.
A few noteworthy unconventional sports competing in 2024 are breakdancing, or "Breaking," making its Olympic debut. There's also the revival of surfing and "sport climbing," or rock/boulder climbing.
Diminished Passion
Most Olympic sports are offered with odds by US bookmakers that are licensed. Although action will be drawn to the lines, Zagorsky is speculating that most of the action will consist of modest bets.
“When you’re betting just because it’s something interesting to watch on TV, you’re not going to put large amounts of money down,” Zagorsky explained.
"I see lots of people saying, ‘Okay, we’re watching the track and field, but since I haven’t been watching track and field since the last Olympics, I don’t know all the people in this race. I don’t really know how to handicap the field, so I’ll throw in five or 10 bucks, but I’m not throwing down $10,000 on the race,'” Zagorsky added.
With the return of Simon Biles, a well-known figure to most Americans, women's gymnastics is one sport that is expected to attract more betting activity than most.
For mental health issues, Biles abruptly pulled out of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which were scheduled to take place in the summer of 2021 but were postponed due to COVID-19. At -500, Biles is once again the betting favorite for the women's all-around.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is the gold medal favorite at +330 in golf, another Olympic event that is sure to draw a lot of attention and wagering. The American women's and men's basketball teams are also heavy favorites to win gold, with odds of -1800 and -500, respectively.
In the pool, Katie Ledecky, a ten-time Olympian medallist, is the favorite in the women's 800- and 1500-meter freestyle events at -400 and -3500, respectively.
Olympic Comeback
As the International Olympic Committee works to rekindle enthusiasm in what is regarded as the greatest sporting event on earth, the 2024 Olympics are a crucial occasion.
About half as many Americans watched the Tokyo Olympics on television as watched the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. The Olympics in Beijing, 2022, received the lowest ratings in US history.
NBC has reconsidered how it will cover the 2024 Olympics on television. This year, the network will rerun major events during its nightly "Primetime in Paris" programming and stream events live on its Peacock streaming service, rather than hyping primetime events that had already happened earlier in the day.