2025 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest Odds, Best Bets: 4 Picks for Fourth of July from Former Competitive Eater

The 2025 Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest sees the return of 16-time champion and world record holder Joey Chestnut to this year's contest. The event is taking place, as always, on beautiful Coney Island this Friday, July 4, beginning with the women's contest at 10:45 a.m. ET on ESPN3 and ending with the men's event on ESPN2 at Noon ET.

The 2025 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest is one of the most anticipated events of the year, and holds a significant place in the competitive eating world, with this year's contest featuring top eaters like Chestnut, defending champion Patrick Bertoletti, Geoffrey Esper, James Webb, 10-time women's champion Miki Sudo, and her husband Nick Wehry.

Chestnut is the heavy favorite to win his 17th Mustard Belt.

Odds via FanDuel.

On the Women's side, 10-time champion Miki Sudo looks to defend her title from 13 other challengers. Like Chestnut, Sudo is the heavy favorite to add to her winning total at -1800 odds.

The assumed battle for second place will be between Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Contest debutant Domenica Dee and one-time winner Michelle Lesco, who took the 2021 title while Sudo missed the contest due to pregnancy.

Odds via FanDuel.

The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, presented by Major League Eating, starts at 10:45 a.m. ET on Friday, July 4, with the women’s competition on ESPN’s streaming platforms. The men’s 2025 hot dog contest starts at 12 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

For more on the 2025 Nathan's Hot Dog Contest, check out Action Network's Interview with Joey Chestnut.

2025 Hot Dog Eating Contest Best Bets

I'm a former competitive eater who failed to qualify for this very contest in 2009, and I have a Ph.D. in mathematics. Does that make me a hot dog contest betting expert? Probably not (Editor's note: I mean, I'm not sure there's anyone else I would want to tail for my hot dog bets, you know?).

Last year I hit Patrick Bertoletti to win at +1200 odds, and am looking to hit a few winners this year as well.

Winner Without Joey Chestnut

It's hard to bet Joey Chestnut at -1800 odds, but investment bettors will be looking to back him. My analysis shows that at worst, he should be -2000. I'm not recommending it simply because most people probably don't want to make that kind of an investment on those odds.

Instead, the real competition, though, will be for second place. Once again, it's between Bertoletti, Esper, Webb, and Wehry. Those are the big four in the tier below Chestnut.

I did a lot of analysis on this: I scraped all the data over the past year — since last year's Nathan's Hot Dog Contest — for all the different food contests, whether it's strawberry shortcake, baloney, bagels, hotcakes, pork rolls and more.

Whenever at least three of those four got together, I tracked the data and compiled the head-to-head results between them. From there, I use some math to calculate the expected probability of being the top eater among those four in any given competition.

At DraftKings, they have the "Winner Without Joey Chestnut" market. I have value on Esper at +300, as I have his fair odds right around +225.

I think we're getting a discount here because in his qualifier, he only ate 43 hot dogs and buns, which is his lowest result in many years. However, he didn't have competition in his qualifier and finished 20 hot dogs ahead, which means he didn't need to push himself that hard.

If we look at head-to-head results versus his opponents in this group of four, Esper went 14-8. Meanwhile, the only other person with a positive record over the past year in head-to-heads is Bertoletti, who was 15-3.

This is a spot where Bertoletti rightly is the favorite in the non-Chestnut market, but he's a little too short at +135, or even at +150. I have +165 as a fair price on Bertoletti.

Esper is a tick above Webb, who clocked in with an 11-12-1 mark against the other three men in head-to-head results when at least three of them ate in the same contest, but both are going off at +300 odds.

Just last month, Esper ate 22.33 pounds of strawberry shortcake, a full 3.33 pounds ahead of Webb and 4.33 pounds ahead of Wehry. That's 17.5% more than Webb and 24.1% more than Wehry, so I'm not worried about his low dog total in the qualifier, given the lack of competition.

Pick: Geoffrey Esper to Finish First in Winner Without Joey Chestnut Market (+300)

Nick Wehry vs. Miki Sudo

Husband and wife won't face off head-to-head as they are in separate contests, but that doesn't stop us from comparing their dog totals.

DraftKings is offering odds on exactly this, with Wehry the -145 favorite against Sudo's +115 underdog line.

Once again, we can compare head-to-head results over the past year, and find that the couple each have five wins against each other in 10 total contests. By using the geometric mean (which is used instead of the arithmetic mean because we're combining numbers from different scales due to the variety of foods and time durations), I calculated that Sudo is approximately 98.85% of the eater that Wehry is over in those 10 contests.

If Wehry were to eat 47.5 hot dogs and buns (HDBs), then based on that 10-contest sample size (and not adjusted for specific foods), Sudo would eat about 46.95 HDBs.

However, if we weigh hot dogs more (because, well, this is a hot dog contest), then Sudo's 51 from last year's contest could get extra weight compared to Wehry's 46.75 that he downed last year, bringing Sudo even closer to Wehry.

And that right there shows why I value Sudo in this market — she beat him last year despite the extra incentive from Wehry with no Joey Chestnut in the contest to push for a win.

I have fair value on Sudo closer to +105, so I'll take +115 in this market

(Note: I took this bet at +130 as given out on the Nathan's Hot Dog Betting episode of the Action Network Podcast, and the line has since moved to +115 where I'd still play it).

Pick: Miki Sudo +115 vs. Nick Wehry

Men's Outright Exact Order 1st/2nd/3rd

FanDuel has Webb priced at shorter odds to win than Esper, and that translates to the trifecta market, where I think we're getting extra value by combining three finishers.

My power rankings have Chestnut, Bertoletti, and Esper as 1-2-3, with Webb in fourth.

Remember, Esper toppled Webb by one HDB last year, and has outperformed Webb over the past year in head-to-head results 7-2 when at least three of the top four non-Chestnut eaters competed. That includes the dominant strawberry shortcake win just three weeks ago.

I think it'll be close between Esper and Webb, but I'll grab some slight value by backing two trifectas here.

• 1. Joey Chestnut; 2. Patrick Bertoletti; 3. Geoffrey Esper (+470)
• 1. Joey Chestnut; 2. Geoffrey Esper; 3. Patrick Bertoletti (+1700)

I don't mind if you want to add

• 1. Joey Chestnut; 2. Patrick Bertoletti; 3. James Webb (+350)
• 1. Joey Chestnut; 2. James Webb; 3. Patrick Bertoletti (+1000)

As these four combinations can all be bet at the right bet sizing to make a profit if one of them hits, and these are the four most likely scenarios by my numbers, with Bertoletti a tier above the other trio of non-Chestnut eaters.

But the value bettor in me has a hard time taking the Webb combinations at shorter odds than the Esper combinations, given I have Esper rated a bit higher.

If your goal is to just turn a profit, you can bet all four. If your goal is to turn the highest long-term ROI, just take the two best values.

Picks: 1. Chestnut, 2. Bertoletti, 3. Esper +470 and 1. Chestnut, 2. Esper, 3. Bertoletti +1700

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