2019 Emmy Awards Might Lack for Drama Thanks to Heavy Favorites

The nominations for the 2019 Emmys were announced last week. The ceremony won’t take place until Sunday, September 22nd, at Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, but the nomination announcements were quickly followed by some shrewd analysis of who’s going to win in each major category.

According to oddsmakers, people whose livelihoods depend on being right about this sort of thing, several of this year’s categories are going to lack for drama, and not just the comedic ones.

SportsBettingDime.com notes that five of the six biggest categories have a prohibitive favorite.

Outstanding Drama Series: Game of Thrones is at -600, followed by Killing Eve at +550
Outstanding Comedy Series: Veep is at -400, followed by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel at +400
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series: Bill Hader (Barry) is at -800, followed by Michael Douglas (The Kominsky Method) at +400
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Julia-Louis Dreyfus (Veep) is at -1000, followed by Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) at +500
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series: Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) is at -700, followed by Emilia Clarke (Game Of Thrones) at +600

The only major category which is remotely competitive is Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, where Ozark’s Jason Bateman (+140) is slightly favored over Bob Odenkirk of Better Caul Saul (+150), with Sterling K. Brown of This Is Us (+400) and Billy Porter of Pose (+500) also given a fighting chance.

Many are likely surprised to see Season 8 of Game of Thrones listed as such a heavy favorite in the Outstanding Drama category, as the show’s final season was met with some extremely harsh criticism.

After fans took to social media criticizing a disappointing final season of Game of Thrones, a https://t.co/5qvdUM2adR petition has gathered signatures calling for a remake. Should social media reign for media criticism or was GOT really that bad—like or dislike?

— Randi Zuckerberg (@randizuckerberg) July 10, 2019

That said, Thrones also won the Best Drama Emmy for Season 7, which was of similar quality in terms of writing and storytelling, and was nominated for a record-setting 32 Emmys this year. The seemingly pervasive complaints on Twitter evidently do not represent general public opinion, at least not in Hollywood.

Of course, if you’re convinced the final season was that bad, and that the majority voters will agree, there’s a pretty penny to be made betting on the other nominees.

Let us know in the comments which of these shows would get your money: