NRL 2024 Least Wins Wooden Spoon Betting – Odds, Tips & Predictions

The race for bottom spot has been a little bit of a rollercoaster this year. Early in the season, the Titans established themselves as the clear favourites after a disastrous first month, before the Rabbitohs replaced them courtesy of their 1-9 start. The latter of those has now catapulted themselves up the ladder while the Titans have also established themselves as nothing more than an outsider in this market, leaving the Tigers and the Eels well ahead of the chasing pack with a couple of months to go. More than likely the team with the least wins will come out of that pairing, though there are still a few other long shots worth taking a look at. Below, we take a deep dive into each team left in the least wins market, and just how likely it is for them to end up ‘winning’ it. 

It’s not a hattrick that anyone particularly wants to achieve, but the Tigers are looking like a great chance to make it three Wooden Spoons in as many years in Benji Marshall’s first season as head coach. After winning just four games in each of the past two years, they have shown slight some improvement in 2024, winning the same number in their first 14 games. But with nobody else putting their hand up too high to steal the ignominious title of worst team in the league from them, they are still the favourite to end the year with the least wins with a couple of months to go. As mentioned, they have shown a little bit of improvement this season, but it hasn’t exactly been drastic. They won two games in a row in the first three weeks of the season in an impressive start, while they also snatched two in a row in late June; that aside, they have generally been beaten pretty comfortably most weeks. Massive blowouts have, thankfully, been relatively few and far between, but they have still been losing comfortably often and have a substantially worse points difference than any other team in the league. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see them snatch another win or two over the remainder of the year, but whether that is enough to take them off bottom spot remains them to be seen. A final round matchup with the Eels looms as a potential circuit-breaker, and may very well prove the difference between the two sides currently occupying bottom spot. Come season’s end the Tigers will likely be able to point to an extra win or two as a sign of improvement, but finishing with the least wins is still very much on the cards. 

• What brings them here? The Tigers have set up shop in bottom spot for a few years now, and while they will be hoping things change in a new era under Benji Marshall, it’s been a relatively slow start. 
• What has changed? Very little changed for the Titans in the off-season. They lost Kruise Leeming to Wigan, and brought in Keenan Palasia from the Broncos and Harley Smith-Shields from the Raiders.
• Injury update: The Tigers can’t exactly blame injuries for their woes, though they do have a couple. Isaiah Papali’I and Junior Tupou should both be available after their respective injuries by Round 20 and Starford To’a before that, while Justin Olam and Alex Twal don’t yet have return dates confirmed from their injuries.

Bet on the Tigers to have the least wins @ $1.90 with PlayUp

The Eels have taken a serious tumble this season. Not that they entered it with particularly high hopes, but at 3-3 they looked at least likely to hover around the outskirts of the top eight and potentially, all going well, have a crack at playing finals. Nine losses in their next ten games, however, has not just seen those hopes extinguished; it’s seen them fall all the way down to the bottom two, and with a couple of months left in the season they will almost certainly finish inside the bottom three. So just how low will they end up? The Eels were battling away without Mitchell Moses and Clint Gutherson for some time and there was good reason to think that they would be a little more competitive once those two returned, but aside from a relatively rogue win against the Sharks they have continued to struggle and there is not all that much reason to think anything will change anytime soon. They do not have a whole lot to play for over the remainder of the season and have an extremely difficult run of games through late July and early August, playing successively the Storm, Warriors, Panthers, Roosters and then Broncos. It’s hard to see them going close in any of those games, though they do conclude the year with a home clash against the Dragons and then an away game against the Tigers, both of which they could be winning. With their fixture as it is before that they will very likely be right down the bottom entering those last two games, and may well need to win one of them to tear themselves away from the Wooden Spoon. This is a tough one to predict given that, by that stage, they will have even less to play for than they do now, but at longer odds than the Tigers they probably look like a little better value to finish with the least wins. 

• What brings them here? The Eels endured a dreadful patch after splitting their first six games, losing all but one game and generally relatively comfortably to put themselves right in the mix for bottom spot.
• What has changed? Not too much has changed on field for the Eels. Waqa Blake has been moved on while Josh Hodgson and Andrew Davey retired, and they picked up a couple of Sea Eagles in Morgan Harper and Kelma Tuilagi. field for the Eels. Waqa Blake has been moved on while Josh Hodgson and Andrew Davey retired, and they picked up a couple of Sea Eagles in Morgan Harper and Kelma Tuilagi.
• Injury report. Bailey Simonsson and Arthur Miller-Stephen will both be unavailable all year with knee injuries, while J’maine Hopgood is indefinite with a back. Maiko Sivo and Kelma Tuilagi are both expected to be available in about Round 23, while Junior Paulo’s foot injury doesn’t yet have a timeline.

Bet on the Eels to have the least wins @ $2.40 with PlayUp

It has been an unusual season for the Titans. At their worst they have been an unmitigated disaster and they certainly won’t be fulfilling the expectations that they had at the start of the year, but despite that there are plenty of positives to take out of season 2024 so far. Their start to the year couldn’t have been worse; four thumpings and an ACL injury in the first month sent them into Wooden Spoon favouritism, but that month has proved to be an outlier relative to the rest of their season. They bounced back from that stretch with a 3-4 run over their next seven games, with each of those four losses coming by four points or less – though admittedly so too did the wins. A poor fortnight followed when they were pumped by the Rabbitohs then lost to the Tigers, but they could hardly have bounced back from that more emphatically, beating the Warriors 66-6 in an incredible game then knocking off the Sharks the next week. Though their overall record is nothing to write home about, if we wipe out the first month the Titans have had a pretty solid season and have certainly been consistently a lot better than the above two teams. That said, the gap between the two on the ladder remains very slim at the time of writing, leaving the Titans right in the mix to finish bottom. But for much of the season, the Titans have been putting themselves in with a chance to win nearly every game, and should have at least a couple more wins in them. If they do manage that, it should be enough to see them avoid finishing the season with the least wins. 

• What brings them here? The poor opening month of the season is what has really hurt the Titans’ year, as other than that they have been very solid virtually every week. 
• What has changed? Not all that much has changed from last year on the field for the Rabbitohs. Jack Wighton is a big in from the Raiders while Sean Keppie came across from Manly, and leaving was Hame Sela, Daniel Suluka-Fifita, Blake Taaffe and Jed Cartwright.
• Injury report. As mentioned, captain Tino Fa’asuamaleaui is out for the year, while Jaimin Jolliffe is due back in Round 24 from a pectoral injury.

Bet on the Titans to have the least wins @ $7.50 with PlayUp

As they did last year, the Raiders have shown an incredible ability at times throughout this season to win close games, and the result has been a win/loss ratio which belies their points difference. They won seven of their first 12 games, and while the first three of those wins were relatively comfortable, the next four came by a combined total of just eight points, and their losses in that time, in contrast, were heavy ones. Take, for example, this run through April, May and the beginning of June; chronologically, they won by a point, lost by 24, lost by 40, won by 2, won by 4, lost by 28 and then won by 1, for a win/loss record of 4-3 and a points difference of -84. That is a remarkable stretch and one which clearly wasn’t going to be sustainable, and lo and behold they went on to lose their next four games, one of which was a 24-point defeat to the Tigers. The Raiders are flailing big time and the chances of them making a surprise finals appearance are increasingly unlikely. It would be no great surprise to see them only win another game or two over the course of the year, but having snagged those seven relatively early wins, that would be enough to see them avoid bottom spot. For the Raiders to finish with the least wins they most likely cannot win another game all year, and even then it wouldn’t be guaranteed. Struggling though they are, it’s extremely unlikely the Raiders finish outright bottom, and even a tie is improbable.  

• What brings them here? The Raiders probably overperformed last year and their record in the first half of 2024 also belied where they are really at, but they have probably banked enough wins to avoid finishing with the least wins.  
• What has changed?  A lot changed for the Sea Eagles from last year to this one. They lost a host of players to other teams, including Sean Keppie, Samuela Fainu, Morgan Harper, Kelma Tuilagi, Kaeo Weekes and Christian Tuipulotu, while coming in were former Tigers trio Luke Brooks, Tommy Talau and Aitasi James, as well as Jaxson Paulo, Corey Waddell and Bailey Hodgson.
• Injury report. Corey Harawira-Naera remains, as he has all season, listed as indefinite with his medical issues, while Pasami Saulo has joined him with a back injury. Zac Hosking is due back in Round 21-22, Jamal Fogarty a week or so earlier, while Nick Cotric and Jordan Martin have suffered an ankle injury and concussion respectively and are listed as TBC at the time of writing.

Bet on the Raiders to have the least wins @ $17.00 with PlayUp

What a crazy old season it has been for the Bunnies. Entering the year they were one of the favourites to win the flag, a few weeks in they were favourites to win the Wooden Spoon, and now they find themselves somewhere in between and pretty unlikely to do either of those things. In the first ten weeks of the season, they managed just a solitary win, were belted pretty regularly, and sacked coach Jason Demetriou. They then won their next five games by an average of 18 points, beating both the Broncos and the Sea Eagles that time to put themselves, incredibly, somewhat back in the mix to play finals. Their form at the time of writing is as good as that of any team in the league, and if they can maintain they will not only not be finishing with the least wins, but they will be in the mix to play finals – and will be a team that nobody wants to play once there. As a result of that dreadful start to the year, they remain in touch with bottom spot and if they fall off a cliff could potentially be caught by the likes of the Titans and the Eels. But it is very hard to see that happening. The Rabbitohs have well and truly found their mojo, and even if they don’t maintain the glittering form they displayed throughout June and early July, they should be able to pick up enough wins to stay away from bottom spot reasonably comfortably. 

• What brings them here? The Rabbitohs were not expected to be anywhere near this discussion entering the year, but a tumultuous first month and a half put them right in the mix. 
• What has changed? Not all that much has changed from last year on the field for the Rabbitohs. Jack Wighton is a big in from the Raiders while Sean Keppie came across from Manly, and leaving was Hame Sela, Daniel Suluka-Fifita, Blake Taaffe and Jed Cartwright. The mid-season sacking of Jason Demetriou, who has been replaced by Ben Hornby in the lead-up to a new tenure for Wayne Bennett beginning next year, has been a significant mid-season change.  
• Injury report. Campbell Graham, Lachlan Ilias and Tyrone Munro are all out indefinitely, while Latrell Mitchell will be absent until Round 23 with a foot injury. Dean Hawkins is due to be available a couple of weeks before that.

Bet on the Rabbitohs to have the least wins @ $34.00 with PlayUp

In contrast to the Rabbitohs, the Dragons were widely expected to find themselves towards the bottom of the ladder in 2024 but have instead surprised plenty to put themselves in the mix to play finals a couple of months out. As the season has worn on, however, the wheels have begun to fall off, and while they do find themselves in the logjam of teams competing for the lower rungs of the top eight, it seems likely that most of the teams around them will rise past them as we near the end of the regular season. Still, the Dragons have done really well to even put themselves in the mix, and have all but certainly removed themselves from Wooden Spoon contention. For them to finish with the least wins it would require something relatively remarkable from a number of teams; not only would the Dragons need to not win again all season, but each of the Tigers, Eels and Titans would need to display a late season resurgence in form which is hard to envision from any of them, let alone all three. The Dragons may well tumble down the ladder a little bit over the remainder of the season, but they have banked more than enough wins to stay away from bottom spot. 

• What brings them here? The Dragons have finished no higher than 10th since 2018 and were 16th last year, though they have done well to win much more regularly than most expected them to this year.
• What has changed? A fair bit. A lot of trades were made in the off-season, with Jayden Sullivan likely their most significant loss – even more so in the context of the Wooden Spoon race given he went to the Tigers – but Raymond Faitala-Mariner coming in amongst a host of others.
• Injury report. Corey Allan is out for the year with a knee injury, Cody Ramsey indefinitely through illness and Mat Feagai is TBC with a shoulder. A host of players return in Round 19.

Bet on the Dragons to have the least wins @ $51.00 with PlayUp

Now we are getting to the real rank outsiders. After their terrific end to season 2023, the Knights underwent a lot of changes in the offseason and didn’t exactly set the world on fire early in the year, dropping five of their first seven games. Since then, however, their results have taken a turn for the better. They are not as dangerous a side as they were in the back half of last year and have managed to secure a lot of relatively tight wins, but win those games they have and as a result they have put themselves right in the mix to play finals – and, more importantly for the purpose of this page, out of the mix to finish the season with the least wins. Theoretically it is still possible, but like with the Dragons they would need to lose every game from here and see a huge surge from each of the bottom three teams, and probably a couple of others, too. The Knights will have their sights set on finals over the remaining couple of months of the year, and should have no problems staying well away from bottom spot. 

• What brings them here? The Knights have been the definition of a mid-table team this year, which, while not exactly what any team aspires to, means they shouldn’t be anywhere near bottom come season’s end. 
• What has changed? Dominic Young is a significant loss for the Knights after he led them in tries last season, while they’ve also lost Kurt Mann, Bailey Hodgson, Simi Sasagi, Lachlan Miller, Lachlan Fitzgibbon and Adam Clune. On the flip side, they will welcome Jack Cogger and Thomas Jenkins from the Panthers, as well as Jed Cartwright from the Rabbitohs, and Will Pryce and Kai Pearce-Paul from abroad.
• Injury report. The Knights have a relatively clean bill of health at the time of writing. Enari Tuala has no timeline set for his removal from the injury list with a calf injury, while Tyson Gamble is due back from a foot injury between Rounds 20 and 22 and Phoenix Crossland entered concussion protocols in early July for a week or two.

Bet on the Knights to have the least wins @ $101.00 with PlayUp

Finally to the Dolphins, who remain a live chance to finish in the least wins based on the fact that there are odds available for them to do that, but who realistically will stay well away from bottom spot. In fact, for large portions of the season they have found themselves inside the top four, once again exceeding expectations just as they did in their first year in the league. The Dolphins won seven of their first ten games of the year, most likely enough to avoid finishing the season with the least wins even in that span, and though they managed just one win from their next five games they have still been reasonably consistently in those games – losing only one of them by more than four points – and should be able to keep themselves at worst on the edge of the top eight over the remainder of the year. Having enjoyed their three byes relatively early they don’t have any more free points on offer, but even if they fail to win again this season – which is extremely unlikely – they will probably still finish a couple of wins, at least, ahead of one or two other teams. 

• What brings them here? The Dolphins have managed to exceed expectations in each of their two seasons to date, and while they entered this year with minimal weight on their shoulders they have done well to turn themselves into a finals chance.
• What has changed? The Cowboys have lost Peta Hiku to the UK, as well as Mitch Dunn and James Tamou to retirement and each of Riley Price, Jake Bourke and Taniela Sadrugu to other teams. Meanwhilee, Viliami Vailea comes across from the Warriors.
• Injury report. Tom Gilbert is out for the season with a knee, and Tom Flegler indefinitely with a shoulder. Jeremy Marshall-King is going to be unavailable until basically the end of the regular season, while Kurt Donoghoe is suspended until Round 22.

Bet on the Dolphins to have the least wins @ $101.00 with PlayUp

Realistically, something remarkable would need to happen for the bulk of the above teams to finish with the least wins. It looks very much like a race within three with the Eels and Tigers the standout favourites among those, something which is very much reflected in the odds. The Eels do offer a little bit more value than their bottom two counterpart and based on the way they have been playing for an extended period do look tempting, but the Tigers, save for a couple of groupings of back-to-back wins, have not really been in with a chance in all that many games this year. The improvement may very slowly be coming, but for the time being they are still the worst team in the league. The race for the least wins will potentially come down to the final game of the season for the Tigers and the Eels, and it’s hard to go past the Tigers as the team most likely to lose it. 

• Only 2 sides have won the NRL Premiership within 2 years of winning the Wooden Spoon, – the Panthers in 2003 and the Sharks in 2016. No team has ever won the NRL Premiership the year after a Wooden Spoon win.

Most Wooden Spoons Won

• 17 – Western Suburbs Magpies (now defunct), lastly in 1999.
• 14 – Parramatta Eels – most Wooden Spoon finishes among current clubs.

Least Wooden Spoons Won

• The Wests Tigers, Manly Sea Eagles and St George Illawarra Dragons have never won the Wooden Spoon, while the Canberra Raiders finished last only once in their maiden year in the NRL competition in 1982.

Most ‘successful’ Wooden Spoon turnaround team

• The 2009 Sydney Roosters finished last and bounced back to reach the 2010 NRL Grand Final but were denied the ultimate turnaround after being defeated by the St George Illawarra Dragons in the ‘big dance’.