Earlier in the week we heard the nominations for each category and immediately the bookies published their Oscar 2012 betting odds on whom Billy Crystal will be announcing come ceremony night.

Best Picture seems to be a two-horse race between the black and white, silent film ‘The Artist‘ (which collected 10 nominations overall) and family drama ‘The Descendants‘ (which collected 5 nominations overall) starring George Clooney.

Bookies have made ‘The Artist‘ favourite on the Oscars 2012 betting for Best Picture. The Artist is currently a best bet of 2/7 from Ladbrokes. The Descendants is not far behind with Sky Bet offering odds of 9/2 that it will pick up some goldenware come Oscar night. You can receive the latest free bets news on all sorts of Entertainment betting news by signing up to Free Betting Online’s newsletter.

Oscar Betting : Best Picture 2012

The Artist	1/4	1/4	2/9	2/7
The Descendants	4	4	4	9/2
Hugo	12	12	11	10
War Horse	12	12	14	16
Midnight in Paris	33	33	33	33
The Help	33	33	25	33
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close	33	40	40	50
Moneyball	33	50	40	40
The Tree Of Life	50	50	50	50

Oscar 2012 Betting Odds Last Updated: 25/01/2011 (Betting Odds Correct at Time of Writing)

Best Actor betting currently has George Clooney as favourite to collect his first ever leading male Oscar. Clooney won a best supporting oscar back in 2005 and has been nominated twice before for the Best Actor category but without success. There’s every possibility that Jean Dujardin from ‘The Artist’ might steal Clooney’s thunder, won the Golden Globes, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, ok, not quite the same thing but it’s enough to keep Clooney sweating on the award.

Oscar Betting : Best Actor 2012

George Clooney	4/9	2/5	4/9	2/5
Jean Dujardin	7/4	2	7/4	2
Brad Pitt	14	14	14	14
Gary Oldman	25	33	20	33
Demian Bichir	25	-	11	25

Oscar 2012 Betting Odds Last Updated: 25/01/2011 (Betting Odds Correct at Time of Writing)

Best Actress betting seems to be sewn as Meryl Streep’s depiction of Margaret Thatcher in ‘The Iron lady’. This is Streep’s 17th Oscar nomination but you need to reverse all the way back to 1982 for the last time she won this award. Viola Davis (The Help) is second-favourite and looking to emulate Halle Berry as only the 2nd black actress to win an Oscar in this category.

Oscar Betting : Best Actress 2012

Meryl Streep	1/2	1/2	4/9	4/9
Viola Davis	3	10/3	3	9/4
Michelle Williams	7/2	10/3	7/2	7/2
Glenn Close	25	33	20	22
Rooney Mara	25	20	22	25

Oscar 2012 Betting Odds Last Updated: 25/01/2011 (Betting Odds Correct at Time of Writing)

From the rest, Best Supporting Actor looks to be between Christopher Plummer (Beginners) and Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn) in the Oscars 2012 betting. Best Supporting Actress will be a close call between Octavia Spencer (The Help), Berenice Bejo (The Artist) and Jessica Chastain (also The Help).

Below are our personal predictions on who will win The Oscars 2011. We have focussed our attention on the main category awards up for grabs and they are as follows : Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and finally Best Supporting Actress. To get the latest Oscars betting odds then check out our dedicated page – Oscars Betting 2011.

Osacrs 2011 Best Picture

The Nominees :

Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

Bookies Favourite : The King’s Speech (Best bet of 1/4 from Unibet)
Our Prediction : The Social Network (Best bet of 5/1 from Bet365)

Opinion : The King’s Speech has been doing great guns at all of the previous award shows, sweeping up Best Picture with ease. As much as we like Colin Firth it would be great to see the Academy go with a storyline that is more current and give the nod to ‘The Social Network’ much like ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ back in 2008.

Oscars 2011 Best Director

The Nominees :

Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (True Grit)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech)
David O’Russell (The Fighter)

Bookies Favourite : David Fincher – The Social Network. (Best bet of 4/6 from Coral)
Our Prediction : David Fincher – The Social Network. (Best bet of 4/6 from Coral)

Opinion : Basically, this is another slugfest between The Kings’s Speech and The Social Network. However, it is pretty hard to deny David Fincher this award. I’m a big fan of his previous work including Fight Club and Se7en. Hopefully, justice will be seen to be done and Fincher will collect his first ever Oscar.

Oscars 2011 Best Actor

The Nominees :

Javier Bardem (Biutiful)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King’s Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)

Bookies Favourite : Colin Firth – The King’s Speech. (Best bet of 1/33 from Blue Square)
Our Prediction : Colin Firth – The King’s Speech. (Best bet of 1/33 from Blue Square)

Opinion : If ever there was a certainty, it’s this one – Colin Firth will win the Best Actor Award at the 2011 Oscars – if he doesn’t, then that will be the biggest upset since ‘Saving Private Ryan’ lost the Best Picture awards back in 1999 to ‘Shakespeare in Love’ … yeah, remember that one, and it just highlights that shocks do happen at the Oscars.

Oscars 2011 Best Actress

The Nominees :

Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)

Bookies Favourite : Natalie Portman – Black Swan. (Best bet of 1/11 from Bwin)
Our Prediction : Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right. (Best bet of 8/1 from Bet 365)

Opinion : If paranoid, drunk, drug taking, lesbian Ballerinas are your thing then Natalie Portman’s interpretation of Nina in Black Swan will have you dancing in the aisles. Portman’s performance has made her front-runner to capture the Oscars 2011 Best Actress award. But Portman has some stiff competition from Annette Bening and Jennifer Lawrence. I think this award is a lot more open than what most people think.

Oscars 2011 Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees :

Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)
Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech)

Bookies Favourite : Christian Bale – The Fighter. (Best bet of 1/6 from Paddy Power)
Our Prediction : Christian Bale – The Fighter. (Best bet of 1/6 from Paddy Power)

Opinion : Christian Bale looks a knockout to win this award after his belting performance as ‘Dickie’ a one-time boxing hopeful who escapes crack addiction, violence and prison to help train his younger brother for a shot at a World Title. Geoffrey Rush is unfortunately up against too heavy a contender in Bale to cause any sort of upset.

Oscars 2011 Best Supporting Actress

The Nominees :

Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

Bookies Favourite : Melissa Leo – The Fighter. (Best bet of 1/2 from Sporting Bet)
Our Prediction : Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit. (Best bet of 7/2 from Stan James)

Opinion : Helena Bonham Carter picked up the BAFTA award last week for her portrayal of the Queen Mother in the King’s Speech despite her delivering a speech with much aplomb I can’t see her repeating her BAFTA success over the pond. Instead we have a two-way tussle between Melissa Leo and the talented newcomer, Hailee Steinfeld. Leo who plays the matriarch mother in The Fighter is the bookies favourite but watch out for Hailee Steinfeld who delivers such a powerful performance as the unresolving ‘Mattie’ in True Grit.

Make sure you get the latest free bets before anybody walks down the red carpet for the Oscars 2011 with all the latest deals and news from Free Betting Online for Entertainment betting.

Current favourite for the BBC Sports Personality 2010 betting is champion Jockey, Tony McCoy, who has the small accolade of being the greatest jump jockey in history. Best odds on McCoy are 4/5 from 888Sport. Tony McCoy finished 3rd in the same competition back in 2002 with Paula Radcliffe lifting the Sports Personality trophy that year. It is interesting to note that no Racing Jockey has ever won the competition although there have been a couple of winners that participated in the Equestrian discipline (both Royalty, so take from that what you will).

Second favourite is golfer, Graeme McDowell, with betting odds of 11/2 from BoyleSports. McDowell has had a phenomonal 2010 becoming the first European US Open champion in 40 years. The Northern Irishman then went onto play a crucial part in winning the Ryder Cup for Europe. There has been plenty of golfers nominated down through the years but you need to go back to 1989 and Nick Faldo for the last golfing Sports Personality winner.

Phil Taylor, is known as the greatest darts player of all time. His record is truly one of consistency that has seen Taylor dominate the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) World Championship an incredible 15 times. OK, no darts player has ever won the Sports Personality but then again darts has never been seen as a “sexy” sport until now, hence the betting odds on Taylor winning the Sports Personality award have seen him come in at 8/1 from Paddy Power.

An outside chance of winning the 2010 Sports Personality is young High Diver, Tom Daley, best betting odds of 25/1 from Sporting Bet. The teenage diver won 2 golds at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi earlier this year. Combined with World and European titles, Daly is hotly tipped to become Olympic Champion at London 2012.

For the full list of the BBC’s Sports Personality 2010 sportspersons and their Sports Personality betting odds please see below.

#market(spbetting2010)#

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None, was more so present, than last night when that ‘wee wummin off the tele’, Gillian McKeith, a well known nutritionist, whom consistently said she suffers a phobia of insects and a fear of heights (what the heck she doing there then, I hear you say) freaked out on her Bushtucker Trial. Her task involved being plunged underground into pitch darkness in a chained and padlocked crate alongside all sorts of creepy things including rats. Gillian then seemed to take an almighty panic attack and then pass out – but was still concious enough during all of this to make sure her top was pulled down over her exposed belly.

Of course some of us are rather annoyed that McKeith faked a passing-out in order to get out of a black pit filling with water and knee deep in all sorts – we want our entertainment and if we can’t have that then blood will do nicely. Seriously, though, all this headline making dramarama from McKeith hasn’t helped her I’m A Celebrity betting stakes. The Scot’s odds have drifted out to 80/1 to win the show with Blue Square.

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Considering myself to be an aveage film buff type (hey, if Johnathon Ross can get away with it, then so can I) I’d thought I’d share my views on who’ll pick up the “golden nuddy man bling” for all you Oscar 2010 betting punters.

Best Picture
It looks a three horse race between The Hurt Locker, Avatar and Inglorious. With many American soldiers still based in Iraq it’s no wonder this film pack a powerful punch with the audience. The Hurt Locker did really well at the 2010 Bafta Awards and I expect it to carry-on winning at the 2010 Oscars.

#market(oscarsfilm2010)#

Best Director
I’m going to throw a swerve ball here and go against the bookies favourite, Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and opt instead for Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious). Reason is, Tarantino tells a story like no-one else can, and it is about time those in Hollywood gave this talented yet obscure Director some credit. If Tarantino doesn’t get it then James Cameron should.

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Best Actor
Unlike Hollywood, but strong favourite Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) doesn’t even have his film in the Best Picture category. Bridges plays a washed-up, alcholic country singer who gets one last chance to do things right. George Clooney (Up in the Air) is another stong contender, playing a frequent flyer character who travels all around America as part of his job : firing people. It is basically a road trip story set in the skies.

#market(oscarsactor2010)#

Best Actress
I can’t see past Sandra Bullock, frankly. Of course, Meryl Streep is a strong contender, but isn’t she always (Streep has 16 Oscar nominations). English hopes lay with Carey Mulligan, talented actress as she is, I feel Bullock has this one stitched up.

#market(oscarsactress2010)#

Understandbly, the bookies have opened the books and made Jenson Button the hot favourite to lify this years Sports Personality trophy. However, look down the 10 nominations and you’ll see names that also gained success this year and who have a story to tell just as remarkable as that of Button’s.

For example, Ryan Giggs, who broke into the Manchester United first team way back in 1991 and has made an astonishing 574 appearances for his club – even more remarkable when you consider a professional footballers shell life with a club is around the 2 – 3 year mark.

Another great sports achiever for me is the new WBA Boxing Champ, David Haye! To step up from cruiserweight to heavyweight is a feat itself, very few boxers have done that and made any real success (Evander Holyfield is an exception) but to also go on foreign soil and defeat a 7ft Russian giant is the stuff of Sports Personality legend.

Then there is Andrew Strauss, the England Cricket Captain. What a shining light he has been for his country and his sport. I remember writing about the state of English cricket at the beginning of the year – using words as “erratic, shambles and failure” to describe the national team. Now look at them, with the right man at the helm, they won The Ashes, confidence is back and once again England fans are enjoying their cricket.

Of course there are plenty others that have risen above the rest in the search for Britain’s Sport Personality of the Year 2009, below you can find the full list of nominations and their early betting odds. The event will take place on the 13th of December 2009 at the Sheffield Arena.

BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2009 Betting Odds

Jenson Button	5/7	8/15	4/5	77/100	4/6	4/6	8/15	4/6	8/13
Jessica Ennis	9/2	9/2	9/2	49/10	7/2	9/2	7/2	4	4
Ryan Giggs	7	7	6	13/2	6	11/2	7	11/2	6
David Haye	7	13/2	9	19/2	7	8	7	11/2	6
Andrew Strauss	16	16	16	171/10	16	14	16	14	14
Beth Tweddle	40	50	50	51	50	50	50	50	50
Mark Cavendish	40	80	40	45	80	66	66	66	66
Tom Daley	80	100	100	113	100	100	66	66	80
Andy Murray	100	50	150	189	50	66	80	66	50
Phillips Idowu	100	66	150	237	66	50	100	100	125

Already, Strictly has grabbed some headliners with the controversy surrounding former judge, Arlene Phillips, and rumours abound that she was bumped-off the judging panel for a ‘younger face’ in Alesha Dixon. Of course this has had many cry that the BBC producers are guilty of ageism which the BBC has described as nonsense.

Arlene’s departure will create a new dynamic within the judges panel and it will be interesting to see who becomes Len’s ‘bickering partner’.

And for all you TV betting punters we have listed the latest Strictly Come Dancing 2009 betting odds below.

Strictly Come Dancing 2009 Betting Odds

Joe Calzaghe & Kristina Rihanoff	3	4	9/2	24/5	4	9/2	4	4	4
Ricky Whittle & Natalie Lowe	11/2	6	6	28/5	5	6	6	6	5
Rav Wilding & Aliona Vilani	8	9	9	43/5	7	13/2	6	8	7
Jade Johnson & Ian Waite	11/2	6	7	12	9	6	7	6	6
Ali Bastian & Brian Fortuna	12	10	12	23/2	10	12	12	12	12
Phil Tufnell & Katya Virshilas	19/2	10	9	27/2	10	10	10	9	7
Laila Rouass & Anton Du Beke	12	12	12	27/2	12	12	14	12	12
Martina Hingis & Matthew Cutler	9	10	8	14	10	10	8	10	10
Craig Kelly & Flavia Cacace	20	16	20	35/2	16	20	14	20	16
Richard Dunwoody & Lilia Kopylova	25	25	25	22	20	22	20	20	16
Zoe Lucker & James Jordan	16	14	14	33	16	14	12	14	14
Chris Hollins & Ola Jordan	22	20	18	26	20	18	14	16	20
Natalie Cassidy & Vincent Simone	18	20	16	35	20	16	16	20	16
Ricky Groves & Erin Boag	33	33	25	37	33	28	33	33	20
Lynda Bellingham & Darren Bennett	50	50	40	59	50	28	40	40	33
Jo Wood & Brendan Cole	40	50	40	69	33	25	33	50	25

Here’s the new trailer for Strictly Come Dancing incase you haven’t seen it yet.