Tour de France Odds: A Case Study of How Bookmakers Priced the 2023 Race

our de France odds are not just numbers on a screen. They are living predictions。adjusted daily based on crashes， illness， and stage results. In the 2023 edition， bookmakers opened with Jonas Vingegaard at 2.75 (11/4) and Tadej Pogačar at 1.90 (9/10) before a single pedal turned. By the end of the first week， those tour de france odds had flipped. Pogačar’s crash on Stage 5， where he lost 1 minute 38 seconds to Vingegaard， sent his price drifting to 4.50. Vingegaard shortened to 1.65. That is a 38% shift in implied probability in five days. Not a slow drift—a violent repricing.What drove that move?Not just the time gap. Bookmakers watch power data， recovery reports， and team press conferences. One trader I spoke to at a mid-sized UK book described how they cut Vingegaard’s odds after Stage 6 in the Pyrenees. “He didn’t win the stage， but his normalized power for the final 20 minutes was 6.4 watts per kilo. Pogačar was at 6.1. That told us the crash hurt him more than the team admitted” That kind of granular detail rarely appears in public tour de france odds. But it explains why Vingegaard’s price fell from 1.72 to 1.45 overnight—before the next mountain stage.

Contrast that with the 2020 race. Pogačar was 5.00 after Stage 8， then won Stage 9 and became the 1.80 favorite. His tour de france odds collapsed in 48 hours. The difference between 2020 and 2023?In 2020。the market overreacted to one stage. In 2023， traders waited for two mountain finishes before committing. That patience cost them. By Stage 15， Vingegaard was 1.12. Anyone who backed him at 2.75 before the Grand Départ had a 145% return. Anyone who waited for “confirmation” got 12%.Let me give you a concrete case. A friend of mine， a semi-retired punter in Leeds， placed £200 on Vingegaard at 2.75 in June 2023. He did not watch every stage live. He set alerts for odds moves larger than 15% in a single day. On Stage 5， his phone buzzed. Vingegaard’s tour de france odds dropped from 2.50 to 1.90. He did nothing. On Stage 6， another alert: 1.90 to 1.55. Still nothing. He told me， “I already had the value. Why chase a shorter price” He cashed out after Stage 18 for £1，120. That is not genius. That is understanding that tour de france odds are a market。not a prophecy.Bookmakers are not omniscient. They make mistakes， especially in the first week. In 2022， Wout van Aert was 3.50 to win the green jersey after Stage 2. He had already finished second and first in the opening weekend. Those tour de france odds were absurdly generous. By Stage 6， he was 1.20. The lesson?

Early-week odds often lag behind obvious form. The same thing happened with Jasper Philipsen in 2023. He was 4.00 for the green jersey after Stage 3. He won Stage 3 and Stage 4. His price became 1.50. If you waited for “the market to settle” you missed a 167% swing.Weather plays a bigger role than most punters admit. In the 2021 Tour。

a crosswind on Stage 7 split the peloton. Before that stage， Pogačar was 1.40 for the overall. After the split， where he gained 1 minute 40 seconds on Rigoberto Urán and others， his tour de france odds fell to 1.15. The bookmakers had not priced in echelon risk properly. They knew the wind was coming—Météo France had forecast 35 km/h gusts—but they assumed the GC contenders would stay together. They did not. That single stage moved more money than the entire first week combined.What about the 2024 race?As of mid-June， Pogačar is 1.75， Vingegaard 2.10。and Remco Evenepoel 6.50. Those tour de france odds reflect three unknowns: Vingegaard’s recovery from his April crash， Pogačar’s double attempt (Giro and Tour)， and Evenepoel’s first full Tour. Bookmakers are hedging. They are not confident. One trader told me， “We would rather take a smaller margin than get burned by a single crash” That is why the overround on the outright market is 118% this year， compared to 112% in 2023. They are building in more error.My own approach?I ignore tour de france odds until Stage 4. By then， the sprinters have had their chances， the first summit finish is done， and the crash risk has revealed which teams are nervous. In 2023。

I backed Vingegaard at 2.20 after Stage 4. Not because I knew he would win—I did not—but because his odds were longer than his form suggested. He had finished second on Stage 4 behind Pogačar， but his final climb was faster than Pogačar’s by 4 seconds. The market focused on the stage winner. I focused on the time gap. That is the edge. Tour de France odds are a conversation between data and emotion. The data is in the power files and the time splits. The emotion is in the headlines and the crash replays. You want to be on the data side before the emotion corrects it.