{"id":22098,"date":"2026-07-14T09:09:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bb-auae-prd-ext-blog-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=22098"},"modified":"2026-07-14T09:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:09:34","slug":"brownlow-predictor-is-daicos-a-lay-with-six-rounds-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/afl-brownlow-predictor\/brownlow-predictor-is-daicos-a-lay-with-six-rounds-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Brownlow Predictor &#8211; Is Daicos a Lay With Six Rounds to Go?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"brownlow-predictor-round18-2026\">\n<p>As of Round 18 2026, Nick Daicos leads the Brownlow Medal race with 30.65 projected votes, priced at $1.60 to win. Patrick Cripps sits second on 24.26 votes at $34, while Marcus Bontempelli is third on 23.68 votes at $10. Our best bet is Cripps at $34, with the value play being Nasaiah Wanganeen-Milera at $51.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Daicos is the red-hot favourite after another strong performance, but can we take the $1.60 as our best bet after Round 18?<\/p>\n<h2>Brownlow Leaderboard &#8211; Round 18<\/h2>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Rank<\/th>\n<th>Name<\/th>\n<th>Team<\/th>\n<th>Votes<\/th>\n<th>Odds<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>Nick Daicos<\/td>\n<td>Coll<\/td>\n<td>30.65<\/td>\n<td>$1.60<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>Patrick Cripps<\/td>\n<td>Car<\/td>\n<td>24.26<\/td>\n<td>$34<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>3<\/td>\n<td>Marcus Bontempelli<\/td>\n<td>WB<\/td>\n<td>23.68<\/td>\n<td>$10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>Jai Newcombe<\/td>\n<td>Haw<\/td>\n<td>21.81<\/td>\n<td>$41<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>5<\/td>\n<td>Harry Sheezel<\/td>\n<td>NM<\/td>\n<td>19.64<\/td>\n<td>$81<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>6<\/td>\n<td>Zak Butters<\/td>\n<td>PA<\/td>\n<td>19.59<\/td>\n<td>N\/A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>7<\/td>\n<td>Isaac Heeney<\/td>\n<td>Syd<\/td>\n<td>19.40<\/td>\n<td>$13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>8<\/td>\n<td>Jordan Dawson<\/td>\n<td>Ade<\/td>\n<td>19.16<\/td>\n<td>$13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2>Best Bet<\/h2>\n<h3>Patrick Cripps<\/h3>\n<p>Could this be an extraordinary case of deja vu for Nick Daicos? It was 2023, Round 18 was complete and Daicos was a $1.60 favourite to win the Brownlow Medal. He played two more games without polling a vote, before injury struck resulting in him missing the rest of the home and away season.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not saying this will happen again, but $1.60 is incredibly short with six games remaining, and with the work being done to Daicos during the game on the weekend, I can&#8217;t guarantee he&#8217;s home.<\/p>\n<p>Cripps won&#8217;t poll in their loss to Carlton, but we still have the Blues&#8217; skipper in second place on our leaderboard. It&#8217;s a huge clash this weekend with the Pies which could be Brownlow defining. A Blues win could see Collingwood potentially win just one game in the last six, which gives the field a chance of making late ground.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.betr.com.au\/sports\/Australian-Rules\/101\/AFL\/AFL-Brownlow-Medal\/AFL-Brownlow-Medal-2026\/1851811\/All-Markets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Back Patrick Cripps @ $34 with betr <\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Lay<\/h2>\n<h3>Luke Jackson<\/h3>\n<p>Luke Jackson is the sixth line of betting, but there are so many indicators that suggest the big man won&#8217;t even finish inside the top-ten on Brownlow Night.<\/p>\n<p>Firstly, he&#8217;s a ruckman, and yes, he did poll well last year, but not at a level where he&#8217;s a genuine Brownlow contender.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s also in a team which is absolutely stacked with players that can poll on any given night. Our leaderboard had five Dockers inside the top-40, with four players on 10+ votes.<\/p>\n<p>We didn&#8217;t have Jackson in the votes in Round 18, and as a result he&#8217;s dropped outside our top-15 on 14.76 votes.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.betr.com.au\/sports\/Australian-Rules\/101\/AFL\/AFL-Brownlow-Medal\/AFL-Brownlow-Medal-2026\/1851811\/All-Markets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Back Luke Jackson @ $18 with betr <\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Value Bet<\/h2>\n<h3>Nasaiah Wanganeen-Milera<\/h3>\n<p>The Saints have had a nice run of form winning three of their last four games, and Wanganeen-Milera has been flying.<\/p>\n<p>We saw the exact same thing this time last season where the Saint stormed into Brownlow calculations, finishing equal ninth on 23 votes. We have Wanganeen-Milera polling around 8.25 votes in his last five games, and the Saints have a decent stretch ahead which gives him plenty more opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>They get a wounded Cats on Thursday night, along with North Melbourne, Gold Coast and Richmond in their run home. Currently in 12th place on 16.29 votes, I&#8217;d be shocked if he didn&#8217;t finish inside the top-eight from here.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.betr.com.au\/sports\/Australian-Rules\/101\/AFL\/AFL-Brownlow-Medal\/AFL-Brownlow-Medal-2026\/1851811\/All-Markets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Back Nasaiah Wanganeen-Milera @ $51 with betr <\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>The Voting System &#8211; Why We Use a Weighted Average Approach<\/h2>\n<p>We use a weighted average system for Brownlow voting to improve accuracy and fairness in assessing player performances. The traditional 3-2-1 method limits vote allocations to whole numbers, often forcing a clear distinction between players whose performances may have been nearly identical. By contrast, our weighted system allows for decimal-based scoring (e.g. 2.5, 1.5, 0.5), providing a more nuanced reflection of each player&#8217;s impact on the game.<\/p>\n<p>This approach maintains the same total vote count per game (six votes) but offers greater flexibility in how those votes are distributed. As a result, it reduces arbitrary decision-making and captures subtle performance differences more effectively. Ultimately, this leads to more precise predictions and a leaderboard that better mirrors how games are perceived by fans, analysts and the broader football community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As of Round 18 2026, Nick Daicos leads the Brownlow Medal race with 30.65 projected votes, priced at $1.60 to win. Patrick Cripps sits second on 24.26 votes at $34, while Marcus Bontempelli is third on 23.68 votes at $10. Our best bet is Cripps at $34, with the value [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":21689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1238],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afl-brownlow-predictor"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22099,"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22098\/revisions\/22099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prdextblog01.bluebet.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}