Another season of European soccer is completed, and there were loads of shocks and surprises along the way. With plenty of major trophies being picked up by outsiders, it’s time to look back at what the bookies got wrong and right about last season.
Premier League winner
The bookies had Manchester City and Arsenal as the leading two favorites going into the campaign, with City slightly favoured at 6/5 over Arsenal at 13/8. Of course, in reality, the title was won rather easily by the third-favorite Liverpool after a shocking mid-season collapse by City and an underwhelming campaign from Arsenal.
longest-odds Premier League winner since Leicester City’s improbable 5000/1 triumph
Liverpool was as long as 8/1 going into opening day, surprisingly making them the longest-odds Premier League winner since Leicester City’s improbable 5000/1 triumph – a feat that will likely never be replicated.
Premier League top goalscorer
Mohamed Salah had surprisingly long odds to win the top goalscorer award in the Premier League, but this was owed a lot to Erling Haaland’s terrifying form over previous seasons, which made him a huge odds-on favorite at 4/6.
Salah was available at 10/1 to finish highest on the scoring charts, making him a great win for whoever predicted his stellar campaign. Haaland’s low odds also opened up plenty of each-way value, with Alexander Isak and Chris Wood the picks of the bunch.
The Liverpool-Salah double would have seen slightly reduced odds as the two events are correlated, but would have still been available at odds of around 60/1, making it one of the best bets of the season.
Relegation
The three promoted teams were once again consigned to relegation in 2025, with all three quickly looking doomed and finishing well below 17th place. This reflected the odds going into the campaign, with Leicester, Ipswich, and Southampton priced at 4/9, 10/11, and 6/5, respectively, to move down.
Champions League
Few would doubt that Paris Saint-Germain was well deserving of their first-ever Champions League title, as they simply outclassed their opposition at every turn before utterly demolishing a very solid Inter Milan side in the final. However, this did not reflect their outsider odds of 18/1 at the start of the season, making them the highest odds winners of all the major tournaments.
Above them in the betting markets pre-season were Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, and Arsenal, all of whom had disappointing campaigns. Barcelona, who are now widely considered to have been the second-best team in Europe over the season, were just sixth favorites at 14/1.
Other leagues
The best bet to be found among league winners was probably Napoli, with Scott McTominay powering them to a shocking Serie A title. In simulations run by Opta’s supercomputer, the Partenopei were given just a 0.4% chance of lifting the title, but eventually secured it on the final day, in part thanks to their talismanic midfielder, who also picked up the Serie A player of the year.
Napoli’s slim chances, according to the stats, weren’t backed by the bookie’s odds being quite so high, but they could still be gotten at 7/1 before the campaign kicked off.
PSG were unsurprisingly very short odds, although the 1/4 might look like value in hindsight
Elsewhere, Real Madrid were heavily favored at the start of the season, with Barcelona being available at 7/2 before the season commenced. In Germany and France, meanwhile, the heavy favorites prevailed, with Bayern reclaiming the league title at 4/9 odds. PSG were unsurprisingly very short odds, although the 1/4 might look like value in hindsight, given how utterly dominant they were over the season.
Best bet of the season
A bet on Liverpool to win the Premier League, Barcelona to win La Liga, and PSG to win the Champions League sounds fairly reasonable in hindsight, although all were outsiders at the start of the season. Accordingly, $10 placed on this treble would’ve returned a whopping $7,695 at the end of the season.
Worst bet of the season
Betting on the underdogs would have been by far the best strategy for 2024-25, with only Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich winning major trophies after going in as favorites. Accordingly, there were plenty of low-odds bets that failed to materialize over the course of the season. Some of the picks where the bookies profited were Erling Haaland to win the Golden Boot at 1/8 and Real Madrid to win La Liga at 4/9.
However, for some low-odds bets which were truly nowhere near hitting, the pick surely has to go on Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur to achieve top-four finishes at 21/10 and 9/4. In reality, the two finished just outside the relegation places after truly dreadful seasons, only escaping a relegation battle because of the particularly poor quality of the bottom three.
