AFL Betting Tips 2024: Selections From Preliminary Finals And Betting Trends
After enjoying a profit of nearly 30% on our semi-finals picks last weekend, our AFL best bets blog is back for the penultimate time in 2024!
Once again, we’ve crunched the stats and scanned the dozens of markets offered by Australian betting sites to find you the best odds available for what will hopefully be six more profitable picks.
Sydney Swans vs Port Adelaide, Friday, 7:40pm (AEST)
This could be the most fascinating of the two preliminary finals considering what happened the last time these teams met, with the Power handing out an unprecedented 148-36 thrashing when the Swans were in their first and only rut of 2024.
Sydney have since straightened themselves out and held tough when they needed to in tense finishes against both Collingwood and GWS.
But there’s somewhat of a curse hanging over their recent history against Port Adelaide, which has seen the Power win each of the last eight head-to-heads, even despite starting as underdogs in the last four.
Couple that with six wins from their last eight away games and Ken Hinkley’s men, who have well and truly put the nightmares of their qualifying final behind them, should give an excellent account of themselves at the SCG here.
Best Bet: Port Adelaide +19.5 points - 1.9 @ Unibet
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AFL Preliminary Finals Predictions:
- Port Adelaide +19.5 points - 1.9 @ Unibet
- Port Adelaide-Sydney 'Wire to Wire' (Any Other Result) - 2.2 @ PlayUp
- Tom Papley to kick 2+ goals - 1.9 @ Ladbrokes
- Geelong to defeat Brisbane - 1.75 @ Unibet
- Geelong-Brisbane Under 172.5 total points - 1.9 @ Ladbrokes
- Tyson Stengle to kick 2+ goals - 1.8 @ Bet365
Sydney Swans vs Port Adelaide, Friday, 7:40pm (AEST)
One of our most profitable plays of the 2024 AFL season has been the ‘wire-to-wire’ market, where we have been able to identify and take advantage of teams who haven’t been able to put together a so-called ‘four-quarter effort’.
One can sometimes identify a difference as great as 30 cents across Australian bookmakers for the ‘any other result’ option in this market, which to be successful requires anything but the same team to be leading at the end of all four quarters.
Fewer teams have been involved in more games to finish with ‘any other result’ than both Sydney (54% of their games) and Port Adelaide (56%), which is almost double the league average of 30% this season.
Most recently, the Swans overcame a quarter and/or half-time deficit in three of their last four wins. The best price you’ll get at time of writing belongs to PlayUp, who had a generous 2.20.
Multi-Filler: 'Wire To Wire' (Any Other Result) - 2.2 @ PlayUp
Swan Tom Papley recorded his eighth 2+ goal haul of his last 16 games last week, so on the basis of a 50% strike rate during that period, anything close to even money for him to do it again is a fair price.
But where it lands in our favour is his even better recent record on home soil, which saw him kick 2+ goals in seven of his last eight games at the SCG.
He missed the Round 21 game against Port Adelaide, and even though he’s a goal creator as well as a finisher in his own right, he would not have been able to change their fortunes on that day!
Player Prop: Tom Papley To Kick 2+ Goals - 1.9 @ Ladbrokes
Geelong Cats v Brisbane Lions, Saturday, 5:15pm (AEST)
Could one of the longest curses in modern football be broken this weekend? That’s what lies ahead of the Brisbane Lions should they wish to qualify for a second consecutive Grand Final, for they last defeated Geelong on Victorian soil in the year 2004.
Beating the odds has been a strength of theirs this year - they own an unbeaten record (W3 D1) as outsiders in 2024, after all - but come up against a formidable Geelong opposition that demolished Port Adelaide in very impressive fashion in week one.
This will be the third preliminary final between Chris Scott and Chris Fagan and Scott has had Fagan’s measure at this stage of the season, with Geelong winning by 71 points in 2022 and 40 in 2020.
They’ve got to their name eight finals victories by a margin of 10+ goals since 2007, and whilst we’re not expecting anything of that sort, Geelong should be too good.
AFL betting apps have set the total points mark for this game at around the 172.5 point mark, which is well over almost all of Brisbane’s several most recent encounters.
Both teams are likely to test that mark with average scores of 95 (Geelong) and Brisbane (93) this year, but Brisbane’s defence is going for just 76 points in return and is therefore likely to drag the score down.
The most recent head-to-head in Brisbane is just one such example, where 63 was a winning score for the Cats albeit thanks to Brisbane kicking 4.13. Even a reversal of that accuracy, 13.4, would have led to a total in the 140s.
All but one of Brisbane’s last eight games finished not only short of the pre-match total points handicap, but produced 170 points or fewer. That’s a lengthy trend that is hard to ignore.
Multi Filler: Under 172.5 Total Points - 1.9 @ Ladbrokes
Despite anticipations of a total score of under 170 from this blog, we’re looking to Cats forward Tyson Stengle to provide us with some value in the 2+ goalscorer market, and it is Bet365 that had top odds of the best Australian betting sites at time of publication.
He has found a bit of a purple patch in that regard, recording ten goals across his last three matches with a reliable goalkicking accuracy of 77%.
That’s a 60% success rate across the season for 2+ goals, whilst on the big stage he has stood up multiple times with hauls of at least three goals in all three of his finals matches so far.
Player Prop: Tyson Stengle To Kick 2+ Goals - 1.8 @ Bet365
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