At the start of the 2022-23 season on Aug. 5, Caesars Sportsbook listed defending champion Manchester City as a -165 favorite to win the league, implying that Pep Guardiola’s squad had a slightly better than 62 percent chance to finish on top. Liverpool — last year’s runner-up, led by charming extrovert Jurgen Klopp — checked in at +200, or 33.33 percent to win.
Taken together, the sportsbook implied that one of those two teams would win the championship 95.59 percent of the time. Other books offered similar odds. The logical conclusion: of the 20 teams in the EPL, only two had a reasonable shot to win the trophy.