Nobel Prize 2015 Betting Odds: Who Are The Literature, Peace And Physics Favorites?

The Nobel Prizes for six fields are being announced this week, which means it's time to speculate on the big winners. The 2015 Nobel Prize in physics is scheduled to be announced Tuesday, the literature prize is slated for Thursday, and the peace prize is scheduled for Friday. Online oddsmakers put Svetlana Alexievich, author of "Voices From Chernobyl," as the favorite for the literature prize. For the Peace Prize, it's a wide-open race, with Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege and German Chancellor Angela Merkel among the favorites.

Nobel Prize In Literature

Online bookmaker Ladbrokes has Alexievich at 5-1 odds to win. Her work documenting life during war and conflict in the Soviet Union and after its collapse has garnered massive support for the prize, according to the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog. Alexievich has been a popular Nobel candidate for a few years, but nonfiction has rarely won the literature prize, the New Yorker wrote in a 2014 profile of Alexievich. You can read an excerpt of "Voices From Chernobyl" here.

While Alexievich may be the oddsmakers' favorite, many experts are wondering if 2015 will be the year Haruki Murakami wins the Nobel. Murakami is a perennial favorite, but the famed Japanese author has yet to win the prize. Ladbrokes has Murakami's odds at 6-1. Kenyan author Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, distinguished professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine, is tied with Murakami at 6-1.

Other notable writers mentioned as favorites for the prize include Philip Roth (10-1), Joyce Carol Oates (12-1) and Bob Dylan (33-1). The last American novelist to win the Nobel in literature was Toni Morrison in 1993.

Nobel Peace Prize

Mukwege has been favored to win the Nobel Peace Prize for several years. The gynecologist has survived an assassination attempt to continue his work treating rape victims. "It is a method of torture. It is a way to terrorize the population. When I see some of the injuries on the women and children, I realize this type of violence has little to do with sex and much more with power through a sort of terrorism," Mukwege told the Guardian in May. Several online oddsmakers have Mukwege as the favorite.

Due to her role in the ongoing refugee crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is favored by Ladbrokes at 2-1 odds. Kristian Berg Harpviken, a Nobel Peace Prize expert from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, also has named Merkel as the favorite for the prize. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC guerrilla leader Timoleon Jimenez are next up for Harpviken. "While both Santos and Timochenko are controversial figures, and each have their share of responsibility for past violence, the Colombian peace process should be a likely candidate for the peace prize, follows in a line of other Nobel Prizes through history, and would definitely be in Nobel’s spirit," Harpviken explained.

Nobel Prize In Physics

There are no betting lines for the Nobel Prize in physics, but there's plenty of speculation about the award. Many believe, based on perceived patterns of voting, that a cosmology discovery will be awarded the prize. Ben Stein, director of the American Institute of Physics' Inside Science who correctly guessed the 2014 Nobel Prize in physics, believes Vera Rubin and Kent Ford will win for establishing the presence of dark matter.

Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, has a fun March Madness-style bracket for the Nobel Prize. Rubin and Ford are in the finals against against Geoffrey Marcy, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for the discovery of exoplanets. Dark matter beat exoplanets in the Sigma Xi bracket.