Championship betting: promotion betting tips for 2024/25 season

With the excitement of the European Championships now behind us, we turn our focus back to the domestic football scene.

It’s now less than a month until football grounds up and down the country start filling up with fans. Of course, for many, it’s the return of the Premier League that is exciting, but for lots of others, the return of England’s second tier creates even more buzz.

After a profitable Euro 2024, it’s time to see what we can do in terms of ante-post domestic bets. In this article, it’s all about Championship promotion bets.

Championship promotion betting tips

Is there a tougher league than the Championship? Probably not. One of those leagues where anything and everything can happen.

Take last year for example. Newly promoted Ipswich Town, against all the odds, despite having nowhere near the largest budget in the league, went the distance and secured automatic promotion to the Premier League.

Ipswich’s achievement last time around should fill each and every team with confidence. In the Championship anything is possible.

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Unlike the Premier League, where we can say with a large degree of certainty that only a small handful of teams can win anything and at least half of the teams have virtually no chance of being involved in a fight for survival, most Championship teams can just as easily go down as they can win promotion.

This is what makes the Championship such an exciting league. This is also what makes it a tough league to predict. From a promotion betting point of view, you could quite easily make a case for half the league, if not more.

Lots of people will strongly fancy Leeds to make amends for their play-off final defeat, while the likes of Burnley and Sheffield United, both of which have won promotion to the Premier League on multiple occasions in recent years, will also be hotel fancied.

However, I’m looking a little further afield. At odds of 10/1 (bet365), QPR, who’ve now been out of England’s top flight since 2015, stand out to my value-seeking eyes.

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Championship 2024/25 promotion odds

Before I ramble more about the couple of pre-season Championship bets that I like, let’s take a look at the current betting market.

The table below shows the promotion odds currently available ahead of the 2024/25 Championship season.

Team	Odds to be promoted
Leeds United	6/5
Burnley	5/2
Luton Town	10/3
Middlesbrough	4/1
Sheffield United	9/2
West Bromwich Albion	5/1
Coventry City	5/1
Norwich City	11/2
Stoke City	7/1
Hull City	8/1
Sheffield Wednesday	10/1
QPR	10/1
Sunderland	10/1
Portsmouth	12/1
Derby County	12/1
Watford	12/1
Swansea City	14/1
Millwall	16/1
Blackburn	16/1
Preston	16/1
Bristol City	16/1
Cardiff City	16/1
Plymouth Argyle	25/1
Oxford United	40/1

West Londoners tick plenty of boxes

With the likes of Leeds United, who narrowly missed out on promotion last season, as well as relegated teams Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United, not to mention other top-six finishers Norwich and West Brom, QPR may not be the first team people think of when the conversation of promotion comes up.

However, as far as I’m concerned, we should be looking to the West Londoners, who could very easily make promotion odds of 10/1 look rather chunky.

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Last term, after a not-so-good start under previous manager Gareth Ainsworth, QPR improved as the season went on under Marti Cifuentes, who with a proper pre-season to implement his ideas, could really start to make things happen at Loftus Road.

The R’s finished the season with three wins, beating strong sides such as Leeds and Coventry, proving that they can cut it with the best in the league.

I look at that side that finished the previous campaign and I see quality all over the pitch, quality that could allow the Hoops to outplay their early promotion odds.

OK, sure, they’ve lost Chris Willock, but I’m not sure that’s a huge problem, especially as they’ll now be getting a full season out of previous January signing Lucas Andersen, who has the potential to be one of the most creative and influential players in the entire division as far as I’m concerned.

Thanks to his connection with manager Cifuentes, who previously steered the ship at AaB, the Dane has ended up in West London, and if he can stay fit, the former Ajax man can play a key role.

There’s also the divisive but undeniably talented Ilias Chair, who is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous Championship players on his day.

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The problem is that his day doesn’t come as often as Hoops fans would like, but the Belgian seemed to find some consistency under Cifuentes last season, delivering a respectable total of 15 goals and assists. With that under his belt and now starting his first full campaign under the Spaniard, the 26-year-old looks well placed to deliver a career-best effort.

There looks to be a blend of experience and youth too. Youngster Rayan Kolli is a real bright spark, one who could light up Loftus Road if given enough game time this season, while someone like Steve Cook provides promotion know-how.

As well as creativity via Chair and Andersen, there’s goals in this team too. Lyndon Dykes is a proven scorer at this level, while Michael Frey, who scored 22 goals for Antwerp in Belgium in 2021, could also be deadly if staying fit.

Ultimately, with these sorts of bets, you’re taking a bit of a stab in the dark, especially in a league like the Championship, but I look at some of the teams ahead of QPR in the market right now and I’m not excited by them, not at the odds available.

In other words, having steadily improved under their new manager last season, with a couple of players who can make things happen against any Championship opposition in Chair and Andersen, 10/1 looks big, while odds of 7/2 on the R’s finishing inside the top six also has a nice ring to it.