The 2024 Paris Olympics are approaching, and the top sportsbooks are buzzing with odds.Â
You can bet on props like the over/under on medals for specific countries, but the bet that I am interested in is the one for overall gold medal total.
For your Best Bets, I will argue that you should bet on China to win the most gold medals.
2024 Paris Olympics
July 26 – August 11, 2024
The Odds
Currently, the sportsbooks have the United States to win the most gold medals at -550, while China is the second-most favored option at +460.
The other options are very distant, with Great Britain, at +4200, being the third-most favored option. These other countries are not worth thinking about, as they are listed as such long shots for good reason.
Oddsmakers are suggesting that it is a very sure thing that the United States will win the most gold medals.
When looking at these odds, one thinks that the USA should win more gold medals than China by a significant margin.
My argument is that there is no good basis for this degree of confidence in the United States, so much so that it is worth investing in China just because the odds are so attractive for the Chinese.
How Could China Succeed?
When one thinks of which country will win the most gold medals, one immediately thinks of the United States because of how large the country is and because of how much emphasis, culturally speaking, is placed on sports.
But we need to consider how China functions. The Chinese government is able to dictate a lot of what happens in everyday life in China in ways that the United States, as a free democratic nation, is not.
In the United States, people might be encouraged to participate in sports, as a reflection of the country’s culture. They also rely on private – as opposed to public – sponsors.
In China, the government exerts pressure on the Chinese to become great athletes on the world stage. The Chinese are different from the United States in that they have in place a centralized, top-down way of essentially forcing their people to succeed athletically.
China’s Investments
For the 2021 Summer Olympics, China’s General Administration of Sports had a budget that, in dollars, amounts to one billion dollars.
A lot of money goes into the facilitation of athletic improvements.
This includes the construction of different sporting venues, the establishment of thousands of sports academies, and technologies designed to help the Chinese get stronger in sports like rowing that they did not used to take so seriously.
China’s Recent Progress
In the last Summer Olympics, China’s investment in its country’s athletics saw a tremendous payoff. The Chinese finished with 38 gold medals, its third-highest gold medal total ever. With 38 gold medals, the Chinese were one off of the United States.
China’s longstanding plan to produce more world-class athletes is clearly paying off.
This country is growing more intense in its determination, as even more sporting venues and sporting facilities are being built. In 2023, the Chinese government spent around three billion dollars on sports.
China’s Best Sports
China is well-known for excelling at table tennis. But this country also boasts a superior number of great divers as well as taekwondo athletes, the latter attesting to the country’s unique strength in martial arts.
The Chinese are also expected to field top-three finishers in many other sports, though.
Takeaway
No country is spending remotely as much as China does on sports. In this country, kids are trained from a very young age to develop their athletic potential.
As the Chinese continue spending a lot of money and invest even more in their athletics, we have to expect a corresponding payoff in the Olympics.
The Chinese were already so close in 2021 to getting more gold medals than the United States.
Even in 2021, we would have been justified in betting on the Chinese because the odds imply that the United States should win more gold medals by a large amount when in reality the two countries are neck-and-neck.
In 2024, we get the Chinese at a great price and with so much constructed potential for them to win more gold medals.
The Pick: China (+460) at Caesars Sportsbook (check our Caesars Sportsbook Review)
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*The line and/or odds referenced in this article might have changed since the content was published. For the latest information on line movements, visit OddsTrader’s free betting odds tool.
