"Brokeback Mountain" is the odds-on favorite to win best picture and best director Academy Awards, while Philip Seymour Hoffman and Reese Witherspoon look to walk away with the prized statuettes for best acting, oddsmakers predicted.
"Brokeback," the cowboy love story that won four Golden Globes this month, is a prohibitive favorite to win best picture, according to a Las Vegas oddsmaker, an online betting service and a syndicated newspaper odds column.
John Avello, the director of race and sports operations at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel-casino, put the movie's odds at 3-5, meaning a theoretical bettor would win $3 on a $5 wager.
"The only movie I think that has an outside shot is 'Crash' which I have at 4-1," Avello said. "I don't know if that momentum can overtake 'Brokeback,' which has won everything up to now."
Sportsbook.com, a Costa Rica-based firm that takes Oscar bets online, had the film favored at a steeper 1-10 .
"It really seems to be the critics' choice at the moment," spokesman Patrick Erlich said.
"Brokeback" director Ang Lee, who directed "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) and "Sense and Sensibility" (1995), is heavily favored be named best director. Avello puts his odds at 2-5, Sportsbook.com at 1-12 and America's Line, a syndicated column, favors him 1-8.
"Ang Lee is superb. He simply has swept every single award without fail," America's Line president Benjamin Eckstein said of honors from the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Golden Globes.
Hoffman, a well-liked actor who has taken back-seat billing in such movies as "Empire Falls" (2005), "Cold Mountain" (2003) and "Magnolia" (1999), is a 1-6 favorite by America's Line and Sportsbook.com to win best actor for the Truman Capote story, "Capote."
"This is the performance of his life, no doubt," Eckstein said.
Heath Ledger of "Brokeback Mountain" was the consensus second choice.
Witherspoon was favored from 1-3 to 7-5 to win best actress after taking a Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy as country-music legend Johnny Cash's soul mate in "Walk the Line."
Witherspoon's closest rival is Felicity Huffman, who won a best dramatic actress Globe for her gender-bending role as a man about to undergo sex-change surgery in "Transamerica," the oddsmakers said.
"If there's going to be an upset in the four major categories you're going to see it here," said Avello, who gave Huffman a 9-5 chance shot at an Oscar.
Paul Giamatti was slightly favored to be named best supporting actor for playing the punchy corner coach in "Cinderella Man," and Rachel Weisz looked to take home the award for best supporting actress for playing an activist in Kenya in "The Constant Gardener," the group said.
"Last year, Giamatti should have won for 'Sideways,' but he ended up not winning," Eckstein said. "This is a little bit of payback."
The group did not give up on George Clooney, who was nominated for best supporting actor for playing a CIA agent in "Syriana." Avello, who along with America's Line sets Oscar odds just for fun, gave him 7-5 odds of winning, behind Giamatti at 6-5.
The hypothetical Oscar odds are for entertainment purposes only. Nevada law forbids wagering on events in which the outcome is known.
The longest shot was Terrence Howard (40-1 by America's Line), nominated for best actor for his role as a drug dealer and pimp looking to escape his life through music in "Hustle & Flow."
"Sometimes conventional wisdom fails and it isn't who you expect it to be," Erlich said. "Chances are one of these might be wrong."