With the English Premier League due to kick off this weekend, here is a preview the bookmaker odds for the 2010/11 season.

Winner

Chelsea is this year’s favourite, followed by Manchester United. Most bookmakers have Manchester City as having a better chance of winning than Arsenal, although Arsenal has shorter odds of the two at Betfair.

Below are the winner odds at the time of writing. The best available odds for each outcome are highlighted in bold (after accounting for Betfair fees).

	Chelsea	Man Utd	Arsenal	Man City	Liverpool	Tottenham
bet365	2.62	3.25	6.50	6.50	13.00	34.00
Betfair	2.92	3.40	7.00	8.20	15.50	38.00
Canbet	2.75	3.20	6.00	7.00	12.00	34.00
Centrebet	2.35	3.00	7.00	6.00	12.00	34.00
Sportsbet	2.70	3.40	7.00	6.00	13.00	34.00
Sportingbet	2.50	3.50	7.50	5.50	13.00	34.00
William Hill	2.62	3.40	7.00	5.50	15.00	26.00
Luxbet	2.65	3.25	6.00	5.50	14.00	36.00
Sports Alive	2.55	3.25	7.00	5.25	14.00	26.00
IASBet	2.70	3.40	7.00	6.00	13.00	34.00
TAB Sportsbet	2.50	3.25	7.00	6.00	10.00	26.00

Month End Top for August

Betfair offers a market for the top team at the end of August. Due to the drop in predictability over a shorter period of time, the likes of Tottenham (14.00), Manchester City (14.00), Aston Villa (21.00) and Liverpool (17.00) provide decent value. I haven’t done so myself, but it would be worth looking at the fixtures list over this period.

Relegation

Blackpool is the favourite to be relegated. One bookmaker offers odds of 1.01 for Blackpool to end in the bottom ten. This is a ridiculous bet because the wager won’t settle until May next year. A 1% return from August to May is far less than you could get risk-free in an online savings account in Australia. Heck, if I was a bookmaker I would happily offer 1.01 odds on Blackpool to still be located in England by May next year. You should always consider the time value of money when making betting decisions on events that don’t settle for a considerable amount of time.