Bookmakers, Polymarket and Kalshi all favor Lowden as screen tests begin, but their numbers chase headlines and add up to well over 100 percent.
Jack Lowden is the betting favorite to become the next James Bond as screen tests begin in London this weekend, with British bookmakers giving him better than even odds. But a closer look at the numbers, from the bookmakers to the prediction markets, shows how little the odds actually know. The boards have spent all year chasing headlines, pricing actors who are not in the room, and adding up to far more than 100 percent.
Here is where every major board stands, and why the smartest bet may be to trust none of them.
The Bookmakers
The best available prices, all at William Hill according to Oddschecker, have Lowden at 8/13, an implied chance of about 62 percent. He was 4/6 on Thursday and shortened again after The Hollywood Reporter named him among the actors testing. Callum Turner, the other name THR’s sources placed in the room, is at 3/1, or 25 percent.
Behind them, the board gets shakier. Josh O’Connor is the week’s biggest mover, from 10/1 on Tuesday to 7/1 on Friday morning, even though only one report places him among the finalists. Richard Madden has shortened to 8/1 with no casting report behind the move at all. Jack O’Connell sits at 12/1 despite reports that he is not testing, and Jacob Elordi is 14/1 one day after THR reported he is not testing either.
Polymarket
Polymarket, the crypto-based prediction market, tells a different story. Its Lowden contract has recently traded in the 20s and 30s, depending on the snapshot, after starting the summer under 4 cents in June. Turner, who opened as high as 54 cents, has drifted to the low 20s. Polymarket also offers something the other boards do not: a contract on no Bond being announced by the end of 2026, which has swung from about 1 percent in May to nearly 50 percent in July and back into the teens.
Kalshi
Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated exchange, has its own Bond market, and THR’s snapshot of it is the most revealing number in the race. Lowden sits at 64 percent, Turner at 28, O’Connor at 19, Idris Elba at 9, Jack Barton at 8 and Robert Pattinson at 7.
Add those six names up and you get 135 percent. The six bookmaker prices above, a board built with a profit margin baked in, total about 126. Neither set is a clean probability. Each price is a separate bet, and a crowded market with no “none of these” option will push the total past 100 every time. That matters for anyone reading these numbers as a forecast. When the top six names on a board account for well over 100 percent, the board is telling you what traders are buying, not what Amazon is deciding.
The names matter, too. Elba and Pattinson have not been reported anywhere as part of the final group, yet they sit above O’Connell and Elordi. And in August, according to an analysis of the market’s prices on Stokastic, the full 25-name Kalshi board added up to about 161 cents, with Turner the favorite at 28 and Lowden at 26.
Following the Headlines
That August snapshot tells the real story of every board in this race: prices follow reporting rather than predicting it. Turner led much of the year on trade-press chatter. Lowden surged after Gary Oldman, his Slow Horses costar, said in September that the role had been cast and that he hoped it was Lowden, a moment we covered at the time. He jumped again this week when THR named him among the testers. O’Connor climbed on a single report. Madden climbed on nothing at all.
None of that is information about what Denis Villeneuve, Amy Pascal and David Heyman have actually decided. It is information about what people have read.
The Favorite Curse
History is not kind to Bond favorites. In 2005, the bookmakers’ favorite was Clive Owen, and Daniel Craig got the part. In 2016, Tom Hiddleston was the clear favorite after The Night Manager, and he was never cast. Between 2016 and 2020, Elba, James Norton and Tom Hardy all took turns at the top of the boards while Craig stayed put. In 2024, Aaron Taylor-Johnson was widely reported to have been offered the role and became the favorite. He has not been cast. Outside Bond, bookmakers made Kris Marshall the favorite to play the Doctor on Doctor Who in 2017, and the role went to Jodie Whittaker.
There is also a profile problem. Reported casting priorities have pointed to a relatively unknown British actor in his late 20s or early 30s. Lowden, Turner and O’Connor are all 36. Jack Barton, at 31, fits the profile best of anyone on the Kalshi board, and almost nobody outside the markets is talking about him.
Bond Girl and Theme Song
The secondary markets are even more speculative, because nobody has reported a single casting for them. BetOnline has Margaret Qualley at 33 percent to play the next Bond’s love interest, followed by Sydney Sweeney and Anya Taylor-Joy at 25 percent each, Florence Pugh at 17 and Zendaya at 13. The board also includes Lauren Sanchez at 5 percent, which says everything about how seriously to take it. Bond films usually feature more than one major female role, so several of these names could, in theory, all be right, or none of them. For the theme, Raye leads at 50 percent, ahead of Olivia Dean, Dua Lipa, Sienna Spiro, Lana Del Rey, Oasis and Lady Gaga.
Where It Stands
The screen tests are real, and Lowden and Turner are the two names multiple reports have placed in the room. Beyond that, the odds are a mirror of the news cycle. If Amazon names someone this fall, the board will have been right only if the favorite survives a process that has eaten every Bond favorite for 20 years.
Disclosure: Kalshi has previously been a sponsor of The Cinema Group. This article is independent editorial and was not reviewed by Kalshi. The Cinema Group and its editors do not trade on markets tied to anything we cover.
