Man City, Real Madrid receiving mixed action atop UCL odds board

There aren't many surprises atop the UEFA Champions League winner odds board ahead of the 2024-25 season: Manchester City (+220) and Real Madrid (+350), who have combined to win the title in each of the past three seasons, sit well above any of the other contenders, per ESPN BET odds. That said, the action on the two favorites is vastly different across the American sportsbook marketplace.

Real Madrid, by far the winningest club in European competition history with 15 titles, is receiving robust action, leading the way at BetMGM, DraftKings and FanDuel with upward of 25% of the tickets and 35% of the handle. ESPN BET has the Spanish giant as its bets leader (26.0%), but Madrid is second in money (25.1%). BetMGM says Los Blancos are its biggest liability for the market.

City, meanwhile, is mostly seeing significantly less action across the board. The Sky Blues have some bet and handle spikes at other books, but largely don't rank well for action.

Bettor sentiment could be low on Man City given their hearing on 115 charges of alleged Premier League financial rules breaches got underway this week -- though that won't directly affect the club's performance in Champions League since it beat UEFA's similar charges on appeal in 2020.

All the same, bettors are backing City star Erling Haaland to be the competition's top goal scorer (the favorite at +300) en masse. DraftKings and FanDuel have upward of 32% of money on the 24-year-old to score the most goals, while ESPN BET characterizes it as "the vast majority of tickets."

After the top two teams, Arsenal (third in the odds at +800) have gotten a fair amount of action across the board and even lead ESPN BET's handle share at 28.4%. But in general, there isn't much consensus after that, as UCL's new "league" format leaves a lot of questions for who will perform best.

"With the increase in early-stage games and removal of the small group 'home and away' leg format, we get to see more of Europe's top teams competing on the biggest stage, which creates ample opportunities to engage bettors throughout the season," an ESPN BET trading spokesperson said.

As such, teams have been flying around the odds boards with line movement, with Liverpool (+1400), Paris Saint-Germain (+2000) and Inter Milan (+2500) getting longer or shorter depending on the sportsbook.