The Ballon d'Or is the most prestigious individual award a footballer can win. Check out historical trend data to track the odds of the current favourites as well read up on history of the award.
The Ballon d’Or is the premier individual prize in football and you can expect to find the usual suspects in the running for the award, as well as some new faces. Our Ballon d’Or odds page offers the latest odds and a look at the current favourites, showing how each participant’s chances have been rated by the bookies.
One month away from the Ballon, d’Or Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr is a massive favourite to win the award. The Brazilian has had a fantastic season where he won the treble with Real Madrid scoring 24 goals in the process. Rodri is a second favourite thanks to Manchester City’s domination of the Premier League and Spain’s heroics at Euro 2024. Jude Bellingham who has a very short price a couple of months ago has drifted out to 7/1 presumably due to England’s disappointing loss in the final of the Euros.
About the data
We monitor trends in odds on key markets of interest by tracking a range of UK and international bookmakers. The update frequency varies, but is clearly shown on all our tables and charts. After fetching odds direct from bookies, we convert them to implied probability to make them easier to manage (read more on implied probability and converting from fractional to % probability). We then take the mean average implied probability to get a consensus view across the betting industry. This average implied probability is what we show on our charts and tables.
Real Madrid’s Vincius Junior comes in as a massive favourite to win this year’s Ballon d’Or award with a few journalist claiming he has already been chosen as the winner. The Brazilian had a fantastic season with Real Madrid winning the league and the Champions League. Although Vinicius didn’t achieve much on the international stage, he still proved himself as one of the best players in the world despite his young age,
Rodri – 9/2
Notable achievements:
Premier League
Club World Cup
Euro 2024
Player of the Tournament at Euro 2024
At one point Rodri was the market leader for the Ballon d’Or award, he is now at 9/2 to win his first ever Ballon d’Or. Rodri is regarded as the best midfielder in the world for a few at the moment with him being dominant with City for so long and being one of Spain’s best players at Euro 2024.
Jude Bellingham – 16/1
Notable achievements:
Euro 2024 finalist
UEFA Super Cup
Spanish Super Cup
La Liga
Champions League
Jude Bellingham was another player who was an early favourite for the Ballon d’Or as he was doing an unbelievable job at Real Madrid. When it came to the final of Euro 2024 he was one of the favourites but unfortunately for England fans, the fell in the final to Spain. If England were to finally achieve the European Championship dream I think we’d be looking at Bellginham as the favourite here.
Dani Carvajal – 28/1
Notable achievements:
UEFA Super Cup
Euro 2024
Spanish Super Cup
La Liga
Champions League
Dani Carvajal had potentially the greatest season of his career after he topped it off with a Euro 2024 win with Spain. The defender was pivotal to both Real Madrid and Spain’s success this year, where he even scored the all-important goal in the Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund.
Lamine Yamal – 40/1
Notable achievements:
Euro 2024
Whilst Lamine Yamal’s achievements for the year don’t total too many trophies, he proved that he could be the future of Spanish football this year with an incredibly impressive campaign at Euro 2024. He is a big price at 40/1 for a reason as the others in contention for the Ballon d’Or have many other achievements and I can’t see him winning here but that isn’t to discredit the year he has had.
Ballon d'Or in a Nutshell
Everything You Need to Know About the Ballon d’Or
Let’s take a look at what the Ballon d’Or is, how it’s decided and who has won it in the past.
Ballon d’Or History
The Ballon d’Or is an annual award presented by France Football to the best performing footballer over the past calendar year. The award is generally considered the highest individual honour a football player can receive. The first Ballon d’Or was awarded in 1956 to Stanley Matthews.
From 2010 to 2015 the Ballon d’Or was merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year Award, though it is now once again independently awarded by France Football. Since 2018 an award has also been presented to the best female player, the Ballon d’Or Feminin.
Ballon d’Or Voting
The Ballon d’Or winner is chosen from 30 nominees by a panel of journalists. The 30-man shortlist is chosen by the editorial staff of France Football, and then an international jury of journalists from a number of different nations vote for the winner. Each country has one representative journalist. A full ranking of all nominees is given during the ceremony before the winner is announced.
Each journalist selects their top five best players, with six points going to the first selection, four to the second, three to the third, two to the fourth and one to the player listed in fifth. The voting is based on set criteria, which are considered in the following order:
Individual and collective performances from the past year
Player class, which France Football defines as “talent and fair play”
The player’s overall career
Ballon d’Or Winners
For the majority of its history, the Ballon d’Or has produced a wide variety of winners, with a new player taking the prize most years. However, from 2008-2017 the award was shared exclusively between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, both winning a record five each whilst playing for La Liga clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona, respectively, and Manchester United in the case of Ronaldo.
Lionel Messi was named 2019 FIFA Player of the Year, beating Virgil van Dijk and Cristiano Ronaldo. The former Barcelona forward won a record sixth Ballon d Or title.
Daniel is a contributor at Compare.bet. He has half a decade of experience writing on topics including sports betting, online casino and the NBA. Daniel also helped cover Premier League football for Compare.bet news and has interviewed Louis Saha, Richard Dunne and Gary Pallister. In his spare time, Daniel enjoys film photography and making Spotify playlists.
Matt is an SEO Executive and joined us in April 2022. He studied in America for university and then trained as a sports journalist before joining. Matt loves all sports, particularly football, cricket and NFL. In his spare time, he can usually be found cooking or grazing on a village cricket outfield.
