Jack Lowden Is Now the Betting Favorite to Become the Next James Bond

The search for the next James Bond has turned into one of the longest-running guessing games in Hollywood. Nearly five years have passed since Daniel Craig hung up his tuxedo in ‘No Time to Die,’ and Amazon MGM Studios has kept its casting process almost entirely under wraps ever since.

That secrecy hasn’t stopped prediction markets from trying to fill in the blanks. Amazon MGM has confirmed the search for Craig’s successor is officially underway, with Denis Villeneuve directing, Amy Pascal and David Heyman producing, and Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight writing the script, and industry chatter suggests screen tests are already taking place ahead of an announcement expected before the end of the year.

Now, betting markets have a new name at the top of the list. Jack Lowden is currently the favorite to be announced as the next James Bond, according to traders on Polymarket.com, with his odds sitting at 23 percent and climbing.

Lowden’s rise has been sudden by prediction market standards. For much of this year, ‘Fantastic Beasts’ star Callum Turner held the top spot, buoyed in part by his recent marriage to pop star Dua Lipa, while names like Jacob Elordi and Aaron Taylor-Johnson also drew steady support from bettors.

That changed after podcaster and author Richard Osman claimed on his show, The Rest Is Entertainment, that he had heard Lowden’s name connected to the search directly. Osman was careful to walk back the certainty of his own claim, framing it more as Lowden being “strongly considered” rather than a done deal, but the comment was enough to send his odds climbing across multiple prediction platforms almost overnight.

The Scottish actor first broke through with the 2016 BBC miniseries ‘War & Peace’ and has since built a resume that includes ‘Dunkirk’ and ‘Mary Queen of Scots.’ His biggest audience to date has come from starring opposite Gary Oldman in the acclaimed spy drama ‘Slow Horses,’ a role that has only fueled speculation about his fit for the world of international espionage on a bigger screen.

If Lowden does land the role, he would become the first Scottish actor to play Bond since Sean Connery originated the character decades ago, a detail that has added extra weight to the online buzz surrounding his candidacy.

Prediction markets tracking the Bond casting have been notably unstable in recent months, with Turner, Elordi, Harris Dickinson, and Jack O’Connell all cycling through frontrunner status at various points. Polymarket’s current data shows Lowden ahead of the pack, though “No Bond chosen” remains a real possibility on the board, reflecting just how unresolved the search still appears from the outside.

The Polymarket contract tracking the casting is set to resolve around the end of December, giving traders a few more months to react to any new reporting, leaked details, or official confirmations from Amazon MGM. Until then, expect odds to keep shifting with every fresh rumor that surfaces.

With screen tests reportedly already underway and a formal announcement believed to be coming before year’s end, the wait for Bond fans may finally be nearing its close.

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