2024 Hot Dog Eating Contest Odds & Predictions: Who’s the Best Bet with Chestnut Out?

Geoffrey Esper scarfs down one of 31.5 sloppers during the 2023 World Slopper Eating Championship at the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo on Saturday, September 1, 2023.The 2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is set for July 4Joey Chestnut, who has won each of the last eight contests and 16 of the last 17, will not be competing this yearWith a much more open field on the men’s side, who is the best bet to take this year’s hot dog eating contest?

The 2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is going to look much different than it has for the past two-plus decades, when the contest had been dominated by Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi – plus one upset courtesy of Matt Stonie in 2015. Joey Chestnut, who has won the previous eight contests and 16 of the last 17 events, was banned from competing this year by Major League Eating, thanks to his affiliating with plant-based hot dog brand Impossible Foods. The result is a 2024 field with no -3000 favorite on the men’s side and a bunch of names most are not familiar with.

The lack of a heavy favorite opens up more betting opportunities on the event, though! For the past decade, the only way to bet the contest was to either throw your money away at someone who was going to lose to Chestnut, or try to bet the over/under on number of hot dogs and buns eaten. I’ve gone deep into these competitors and have a bet locked in that I feel good about!

The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest gets underway on July 4 with the women’s side starting at 10:45am ET and the men coming on at 12pm ET. Be sure to lock your bets ahead of time!

2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest Odds

All major online sports betting apps have Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest odds available for today. Without Chestnut in the field, Geoffrey Esper is the favorite to win the 2024 contest with -105 odds at FanDuel. Some sportsbooks have him as short as -115. If you bet $20 on Esper to win at -105 odds, you would stand to win $19.05 and return $39.05. Based off those odds, Esper is given a 51.2% chance to win this year’s contest.

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James Webb has the second-best odds at +155. If you bet $20 on Webb, you would potentially win $31 and return $51. Webb’s implied probability to win the contest is 39.2%.

The 2024 hot dog eating contest is seen as a two-horse race between Esper and Webb. Patrick Bertoletti, who is given the third-best odds, is a distant +850 and the odds continue to get significantly longer as you scroll down the board.

Geoffrey Esper Eating Stats & Records

Most of the country is asking the same question today: who is Geoffrey Esper and should I bet him to win the hot dog eating contest? I’ll answer the first part in this section and then the second later on in the article.

Esper was the runner-up in the 2023 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, scarfing down 49 hot dog and buns versus Chestnut’s 62. Esper was also the runner-up in the 2022 and 2021 events as well. His best performance came in 2021 when he ate 50 HDBs. This is a man who has spent the last three years crushing hot dogs but living in Chestnut’s shadow.

He is 49 years old and listed at 195 lbs out of Oxford, Massachusetts. Here are a handful of the eating records he holds:

11 5.6oz Corn Dogs in 3 mins (2022)36 4.5oz Brats in 10 mins (2019)83 slices of 10″ Pizza in 10 mins (2018)19.25 9″ Personal Pizza Pies  in 10 mins (2018)23.75 lbs of Strawberry Shortcake in 8 mins (2024)281 Hooters Wings in 10 mins (2019)37.5 9oz Sloppers in 8 mins (2020)76 3.2oz Glier’s Brats in 10 mins (2022)

This man is a polished eating-contest legend.

James Webb Eating Stats & Records

James Webb made waves as the first Australian to eat competitively at Coney Island in 2022 and will be competing in his third straight contest this year. Webb finished third in each of the last two events, consuming 41 HDBs in 2022 and 47 in 2023. That put him six and two HDBs back of Esper in those respective years.

Webb is much younger than Esper at only 35 years old, but his MLE profile lacks a listed weight. While he doesn’t hold nearly as many eating records as Esper, he does hold these six:

70 Glazed Donuts in 8 mins (2024)51 2.5oz Southside Market & Barbecue Texas Sausages in 10 mins (2024)350 Jack’s Donut Holes in 8 mins (2024)338 Pistachios in 8 mins (2024)224 Chicken Wings in 10 mins (2024)13.5 lbs of Chocolate Fudge in 8 mins (2024)

The kicker with Webb is that it seems he is just beginning to enter his competitive eating prime, evident by all of his records being from this year.

Picks & Predictions for 2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest

Geoffrey Esper to Win (-105 at FanDuel)

We have known for about a month now that Joey Chestnut would not be competing in the 2024 event, giving each of this year’s competitors some time to ramp up training. The man who I believe got the biggest boost from the news is Geoffrey Esper, who has a chance to etch his name among the eating contest greats after years of being overlooked.

He has proven to be better than Webb, Wehry, and many others in the field year after year. When it comes to crushing HDBs, there’s Joey Chestnut, Kobayashi, and then Esper. I like Esper to seize the opportunity in front of him and win this year’s contest with around 50 HDBs consumed.

The best place to make this bet is FanDuel, where you can find Esper at -105 odds. Don’t wait too long to lock this one in, though. The odds have been shortening all morning.

If you’re looking to take a bigger swing, I couldn’t resist Nick Wehry, who is married to Miki Sudo (the heavy favorite on the women’s side), at +1400 odds at FanDuel. He’s as short as +550 at some sportsbooks and was only four HDBs back of Esper in last year’s contest.

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