2024 Olympic Swimming – Predictions & Best Bets

The 2024 Olympics are finally here, which means it’s time to start breaking down the odds. Today we’re looking at our swimming best bets for the slate of  2024 Olympic swimming we have starting on July 27th. Swimming can be one of the harder events to find value in, but we’ve narrowed it to some of our favorite swimming bets. Come check it out!

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2024 Olympic Swimming – Predictions & Best Bets

Elijah Winnington (+250) – 400m Men’s Freestyle

The first event to get started is perhaps one of the most competitive in all of 2024 Olympic swimming. At the World Championships this year, first and third place were separated by a quarter of a second. Min Woo Kim wound up winning the event, with Winnington and Lukas Märtens going two and three.

While Kim has juicy odds as well, I like Winnington to win the event here for two reasons. The first is that he was that close to winning Worlds and had led during the qualifying heat. The second is that he qualified for the finals back in the 2021 Olympics as well – something none of the names towards the top of the board can claim.

Lily King (+300) – 100m Women’s Breaststoke

How often are you going to get a world record holder in the event at these kinds of numbers?

The books are clearly counting on King’s best days being behind her. She took gold in the event in 2016 and then set the world record the next year at Worlds. The odds have slipped a bit because she dropped to Bronze in 2021 and then didn’t compete at this year’s World Championships. Still, you have to love the pedigree and the fact that she was putting up winning times in the pool in 2023.

Katie Ledecky (-350) – 800m Women’s Freestyle

We couldn’t write a 2024 Olympic swimming article and leave Ledecky off altogether. She is swimming in a lot of ways. While we’d love to get down on her 1500m odds, they’ve simply gotten out of control. They sit now at -3500. Because we know she dominates the distance game, we’ll cut the event down by one and take the literally ten times better odds that we’re getting in this one.

Tomoru Honda (+300) – 200m Men’s Backstroke

The reigning World Champion and last Olympic’s silver medalist in the event finds himself listed third in the odds for this year’s go. World record holder, Kristof Milak, and new hotness, Leon Marchand, are listed above him. While Honda has the experience of big events, he’s no old geezer. He’s actually the youngest of those three and this is a young man’s event. Give me the youth with the experience with big odds here.

Sarah Sjöström (-200) – 50m Women’s Freestyle

It’s a little chalky, but this one feels like a sure thing. Sjöström has dominated the sprint event here for some time. She took the silver at the last Olmpics, barely losing to Emma McKeon, who is not in this year’s event. She took the World Championships this year at the event by a wide margin, and with second place finisher Kate Douglass not in this event this year, she should have a relatively easy path to the gold for the 2024 Olympics.

Daniel Wiffen (+225) – 800m Men’s Freestyle

For the record, I also like Wiffen’s chances in the 1500m freestyle, where his odds are exactly the same they are here. He’s been putting up times in the longer events for the last two years that make it look like he’s sure to come home with a gold somewhere. The 23-year old Northern Irish phenom won both events at the World Championships and set a world record at the European championships last winter. Put him on the board to grab one or both of these events at the 2024 Olympics at decent odds.

If you’d like even more 2024 Olympic swimming best bets, be sure to check out the Sports Gambling Podcast. The guys are dropping weekly episodes about every sport imaginable to make you the smartest guy at the bar.