Vegas Oddsmakers Handicap Oscars
— -- Las Vegas oddsmakers, who annually weigh in on who's likely to take home Oscar gold, are favoring Gladiator to win Best Picture and Julia Roberts to win Best Actress — agreeing with nearly every industry analyst by doing so.
The too-close-to-call race this year is the one for the Best Actor Oscar, in which two-time winner Tom Hanks goes up against two-time nominee Russell Crowe.
The other three contenders in this race, Geoffrey Rush, Ed Harris, and Javier Bardem, are considered to be extreme long shots, so the oddsmakers are concentrating their analysis on the two heavyweights.
David Scott, of Vegas-based America's Line, predicts that Hanks will go for his third Best Actor Oscar — which would be an Academy first. He gives Hanks 4-5 odds and Crowe 8-5 odds, but says that a Gladiator sweep could whisk Crowe into the victory circle March 25. Crowe already lost this same race to Hanks at the Golden Globe Awards in January.
John Avello, director of the race and sports books for Bally's and Paris hotel-casinos, thinks that Gladiator's furious fighter will be victorious. Avello sizes Crowe up at 2-1 and Hanks at 3-1. Joe Lupo, of the Stardust hotel and casino, also favors Crowe at 2-1, but his odds on Hanks are 7-2, because he doesn't believe that Cast Away carried "the weight some of his other movies did," he tells The Associated Press.
Will Traffic Sideswipe Gladiator?
In the Best Picture race, Scott says Traffic might pull an upset over Gladiator, but that, according to the Web site for America's Line, there's "no f---ing way" that Erin Brockovich will win, and that since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's bound to win the foreign film category, it won't possibly win for Best Picture.
In the Best Actress race, no one's planning to bet against Roberts' winning — not that you can actually bet on the outcome of the Oscars in the United States, as Scott points out. "Wagering on the Academy Awards is illegal in the United States, even in Nevada. However, the practice of betting on the Oscars is both lawful and popular in Great Britain, Europe, Australia, and Mexico," says Scott. In other words, Aussies can bet the farm on hometown favorites Crowe and Rush — if they can decide between them.
Last year, Vegas oddsmakers correctly predicted that Kevin Spacey would snap up the Best Actor Oscar for American Beauty.
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