AFL Rising Star Betting Odds & Insights 2024

AFL number one draft picks are judged incredibly harshly throughout their career. These stats above, actually tell a good story and reaffirm that the teams selection committees' generally know what they are talking about, as the higher a player is drafted, the better they have performed in the Rising Star.

In the past 10 years, and out of the 52 players who finished in the Top 5 for the Rising Star:

• 26 players who polled in the top 5, were a top 10 draft pick (50% of players)
• 18 of these players, were a top 5 draft pick (35% of players)
• 5 players who won the Rising Star, were a top 3 draft pick (50%)
• 2x number 1 draft picks, won the Rising Star (20%)
• 21 players polled in the top 5, who were a second or third year player (40%)

While it's too early to tell who will poll well, we can see what players historically have good odds, for what their draft spot says about them.

Take Harley Reid for example. History tells us there is a 20% chance he should win. Without him playing a game of AFL football, if he was paying over 5.00, we think that would be a decent bet - especially because he looks like a fair jet in the under's, and there'll definitely be a place for him to shine at West Coast.

However, at 3.75, that is not a good bet at this point in time.

Older Players

It is also interesting (yet not really surprising), that the older young players poll well in the Rising Star, due to more exposure in the game, and their bodies filling out a bit more. Although there has only been one second year player to win the Rising Star in the past 10 years (2021 Luke Jackson), if we go back a few more years - in 2012 Daniel Talia won the Rising Star after being drafted three years prior, and Dan Hannebery won it in 2010, after being drafted two years before that.

If we count Jaeger O'Meara (2013 winner) and Jesse Hogan (2015 winner) - both players were in the mini draft two years prior, giving them the edge of AFL exposure that the other older players received.

To make it easier to swallow all of this - since 2010-2023, 5 players were drafted before the year previous, and have won the Rising Star (36%).

2 of the 4 players (50%) from the Mini-Draft, won the AFL Rising Star. It's pretty well accepted that the Mini-Draft players would have gone probably in picks 1 and 2, for their respective year drafts. The Mini-Draftees therefore were likely high picks, but also had the experience playing (or training at least) with the big boys for an extra year, to give them an extra edge.

With all this information - this is why former #2 pick (2021) Sam Darcy is Our Rising Star Tip.