Over the past six events on the HSBC World Sevens Series, one side has been absolutely dominant. With New Zealand winning five of the previous six events this year, the Kiwi team has already been crowned champions despite there being one tournament to go in the 2022-23 season. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still plenty on the line heading into the tour’s final stop of the year at the London Sevens.
With Olympics qualification still up for grabs and a relegation tournament being played between the bottom four teams, this will be a fierce weekend of Sevens. Expect big shifts from the likes of Samoa, South Africa and Australia as they look to push for automatic qualification in Paris 2024, while New Zealand will surely want to continue their winning run too.
We break down all the best bets to make on the London Sevens 2023 with the latest odds from bookmaker William Hill.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: May 19th, 1:00 A.M. (GMT)
Looking at the outright winner odds, it’s no surprise that William Hill has New Zealand as the favourites to win yet another tournament in London. Paying 2.62, the series winners are well ahead of second favourite Fiji, who is at 4.50. Behind them, Argentina pays 6.00 before Australia and South Africa round out the top five on 8.00 and 11.00 respectively.
Betting on the London Sevens is tricky in 2023. On the one hand, New Zealand has been utterly dominant. After a slow start to the season in Hong Kong and then a semi-final exit in Dubai, the Kiwis have found their stride and only missed one final across the past eight events. With wins in Sydney, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Singapore and Toulouse, there’s every reason to believe New Zealand will simply continue winning and claim the London crown too.
The challenge with this logic is that New Zealand now has nothing to play for. They’ve already won the title this season. Will they rest players? Will they let their guard down? These are big unknowns and makes a bet on the All Black Sevens team a little disconcerting.
Instead, we say backing the Fijians is a great wager. With a return of 4.50, this is a healthy bet that has plenty of reason behind it too. While Fiji has had a surprisingly off season by their standards, the nation is still fourth in the standings. Winning Olympic medals is so significant for the small island nation that they’ll head into this event focused on getting a big result and not slipping any lower on the table.
With four semi-final appearances in their past six events, the Fijians are there or there abouts. Perhaps an off weekend from New Zealand is all they need to break through and win their first title of the season.
