First time’s the charm for Lainey Wilson at ACM Awards? She’s the odds-on favorite for Female Artist of the Year

Lainey Wilson only just won New Female Artist of the Year at last year’s Academy of Country Music Awards. Now she’s the leading lady at this year’s kudos with six nominations. That includes her first ever nom for Female Artist of the Year. Can she win that prize on her very first try?

As of this writing Wilson gets leading 11/2 odds of winning Female Artist of the Year according to the combined predictions of Gold Derby users. That includes support from 18 of the Top 24 Users who got the highest scores predicting last year’s ACM Awards and 19 of the All-Star Top 24 who got the highest scores when you combine prediction results from the last two years.

Of course, it’s advantageous for Wilson that she has the most nominations of any female artist. Those nominations are also spread among key categories including Album of the Year (“Bell Bottom Country”), Single of the Year (“Heart Like a Truck”), and Song of the Year (“Wait in the Truck”). She’s the only Female Artist nominee who’s up for all three of those awards, indicating broad support.

Will that be enough to dethrone the defending champ, Carly Pearce? She ranks second with 13/2 odds and support from three Top Users and two All-Stars. She took us by surprise when she won last year, and she’s also coming off her first Grammy win for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” with Ashley McBryde. However, Pearce had a corresponding Album of the Year bid at last year’s ACMs. She’s currently in-between album eras, which might leave her at a disadvantage this time around.

And of course you can never count out Miranda Lambert, who ranks third in our predictions with 7/1 odds. She’s the all-time most awarded woman in this category with nine past victories. And she’s got an Album of the Year nom this year for “Palomino.” She’s also an Entertainer of the Year nominee, which you might think makes her the woman to beat here, but the Entertainer award doesn’t usually correlate with the gendered artist categories. It has also been five years since Lambert last won here. Still, you can never say never where she’s concerned.

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