Study · NRL · July 2022 to the 2026 Grand Final · 921 games
Slight favourites
are a coin flip.
NRL teams priced between 50% and 60% should have won about 140 of their 252 games. They won 126 and lost 126.
921 games with closing prices from 3 or more bookmakers, 1 July 2022 to 4 October 2026 · Published 30 October 2026 ·
Free to quote under CC BY 4.0 ·
Download the data (CSV)
NRL2022-26
50.0%
Slight favourites won
Favourites
by price.
From 60% up the price was close to right. Below 60% the favourite was no better than a coin flip.
| Favourite's price | Games | Priced to win | Won | Lost |
|---|
| 50-60% | 252 | 55.5% | 50.0% | 126 |
| 60-70% | 329 | 64.7% | 64.4% | 117 |
| 70-80% | 235 | 74.5% | 75.7% | 57 |
| 80-90% | 99 | 83.7% | 81.8% | 18 |
| 90% and up | 6 | 91.5% | 83.3% | 1 |
| All favourites | 921 | 66.9% | 65.4% | 319 |
The 50-60% favourites came in 5.5 points under their price. Resampled 4,000 times, that gap lands between -11.7 and 0.7 points. That range only just reaches past zero, so it leans real but could still be chance.
Home underdogs
bite.
Home teams were priced to win 55.1% and won 56.2%. The gap comes from the home underdogs: priced at 34.3%, they won 37.9% of 348 games. Home favourites came in right on their price (67.7% priced, 67.4% won).
| Season | Games | Home priced | Home won | Home wins |
|---|
| 2022 (from July) | 83 | 54.2% | 54.2% | 45 |
| 2023 | 202 | 56.4% | 56.9% | 115 |
| 2024 | 212 | 55.6% | 58.5% | 124 |
| 2025 | 211 | 54.0% | 55.9% | 118 |
| 2026 | 213 | 54.7% | 54.5% | 116 |
| All | 921 | 55.1% | 56.2% | 518 |
The home-underdog gap is 3.6 points, with a 95% range of -1.3 to 8.6. Suggestive, not settled.
The big
upsets.
Teams priced at 80% or more lost 19 of 105 games, close to the 17 the odds allowed for. The Wests Tigers caused 5 of those upsets, more than any other team.
| Date | Favourite | Priced to win | Lost to | Final |
|---|
| 14 March 2025 | Penrith Panthers (home) | 91.2% | Sydney Roosters | 32-38 |
| 23 August 2026 | Sydney Roosters (home) | 89.5% | Wests Tigers | 24-25 |
| 24 August 2023 | Penrith Panthers (home) | 87.4% | Parramatta Eels | 18-32 |
| 29 April 2023 | Penrith Panthers (home) | 87.4% | Wests Tigers | 8-12 |
| 3 August 2024 | Melbourne Storm (home) | 86.1% | St George Illawarra Dragons | 16-18 |
| 30 July 2022 | Brisbane Broncos (home) | 86.0% | Wests Tigers | 18-32 |
| 31 May 2026 | Brisbane Broncos (home) | 85.5% | St George Illawarra Dragons | 26-30 |
| 8 April 2023 | Brisbane Broncos (home) | 84.8% | Canberra Raiders | 14-20 |
| 1 September 2024 | Sydney Roosters (home) | 84.7% | Canberra Raiders | 12-14 |
| 9 April 2026 | Penrith Panthers (away) | 84.6% | Canterbury Bulldogs | 16-32 |
| 9 August 2026 | Cronulla Sutherland Sharks (away) | 84.5% | St George Illawarra Dragons | 16-24 |
| 22 August 2024 | Manly Warringah Sea Eagles (away) | 82.7% | Wests Tigers | 26-34 |
Final shows the favourite's score first. Twelve biggest shown; all are in the data file.
Is it
real?
Over 921 games the closing odds were close to the truth: favourites -1.5 points against their price (95% range -4.6 to 1.4), home teams +1.1 (range -1.8 to 4.2). The two patterns worth watching are both about close games: slight favourites win less than priced, and home underdogs win more. 30.0% of games were decided by six points or fewer.
This week's
NRL games.
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How we
measured.
The method
We took the closing head-to-head price for every NRL game from 1 July 2022 to 4 October 2026 that had prices from at least three bookmakers (about 11 on average). Earlier seasons in our archive have only one bookmaker, so they are left out. Each bookmaker's two prices were turned into chances, then scaled so the two teams add up to 100%, which removes the bookmaker's cut (on average 4.84%). We averaged the bookmakers for each game and matched it to the official final score. The 3 drawn games were left out. Finals are included (45 games).
On the Brier score (the average squared error of a chance; a coin flip scores 0.250), the closing prices scored 0.2139, close to the 0.212 they expected of themselves.
The data file
nrl-favourites-2022-2026.csv has one row per game. Columns: date, season, stage, home, away, home_chance (margin-free closing chance for the home team), books, home_score, away_score, home_won.
Free to use, share and adapt under CC BY 4.0. Please credit “Bet Better (betbetter.world)” and link to this page.
Cite this study
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