While the market has three clear contenders - Smith, Daicos and Dawson - our Brownlow Predictor has the market a lot closer. A new contender has emerged from outside the top-8 into equal second on our leaderboard - and he’s paying $41.
| Pos | Player | Club | Votes | Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bailey Smith | Geelong | 15 | $3.25 |
| =2 | Hugh McCluggage | Brisbane | 14 | $41 |
| =2 | Noah Anderson | Gold Coast | 14 | $16 |
| 4 | Nick Daicos | Collingwood | 13.5 | $4.50 |
| 5 | Lachie Neale | Brisbane | 12.75 | $21 |
| 6 | Jordan Dawson | Adelaidle | 12.25 | $6 |
| 7 | Max Gawn | Melbourne | 12 | $34 |
| 8 | Caleb Serong | Fremantle | 11.75 | $26 |
Best Bet
Our value at $26 after Round 11 - he’s now our best bet.
A monstrous game by the Gold Coast skipper in their Round 12 loss, with 39 disposals, 22 contested, 12 clearances and 8 score involvements - and with no genuine standout for the Dockers, Anderson is a fair chance to record 3 votes.
That’s now six games with 32+ disposals for Anderson, while he’s produced 35 clearances in the last three weeks. Think we’d see a much shorter price if Anderson wasn’t off broadway.
Lay
The traders have effectively labeled this a three-horse race based on the current odds and it’s simply not true.
Dawson is one of three players in single figure odds with Noah Anderson the fourth favourite but at a distant $16.
Highly unlikely that Dawson polls on the weekend in one of his weaker performances of the season despite the score-line, and on our leaderboard the Adelaide captain is in sixth place with 11 players within striking distance below him.
Value
Never been a huge poller, but he’s having a career year and most importantly his contested ball numbers are well up on previous years.
Prior to 2025, McCluggage’s best contested possession output was 9.5 per game in 2023, but he’s going at 11.8 this season ranking him 21st in the competition - he was 66th in this category last year.
To go with this, McCluggage is recording a career-high in disposals, clearances and score involvements. Could he be a Brownlow bolter in 2025?
The Voting System - Why We Use a Weighted Average Approach
We use a weighted average system for Brownlow voting to improve accuracy and fairness in assessing player performances. The traditional 3-2-1 method limits vote allocations to whole numbers, often forcing a clear distinction between players whose performances may have been nearly identical. By contrast, our weighted system allows for decimal-based scoring (e.g., 2.5, 1.5, 0.5), providing a more nuanced reflection of each player’s impact on the game.
This approach maintains the same total vote count per game (six votes) but offers greater flexibility in how those votes are distributed. As a result, it reduces arbitrary decision-making and captures subtle performance differences more effectively. Ultimately, this leads to more precise predictions and a leaderboard that better mirrors how games are perceived by fans, analysts, and the broader football community.
