Leicester City Favorites To Win The Championship? Why Not Bolton?

If you've taken a look at betting websites over the last couple weeks, the one thing that you'll notice over and over again is that Leicester City are odds-on favorites to win the Championship. Their odds run as short as 5/1 while Bolton hover in the 8/1 - 10/1 range. Hell, even Wolves are often pegged to win above Bolton. Why is this?

Leicester City are favored to win simply because they have the money to spend. The Foxes were taken over by a Thai consortium back in 2010 and were promised money to spend on players. The new ownership group quickly installed Sven-Goran Eriksson as the manager following the sacking of Paulo Sousa. Leicester's rating is based simply on potential spending.

We've seen time and time again that money doesn't necessarily win championships or even The Championship. For years, Queens Park Rangers topped the football rich list with owners Bernie Eccleston and Lakshmi Mittal but they languished in England's second tier. The problem lies with the difficulty of attracting quality players to the Championship. The fact of the matter is that top talent wants to go to top leagues. Who would have thought that?

Wolves are more of a mystery than Bolton, however. They finished bottom of the Premier League and were relegated long before Bolton Wanderers. Wolves have a decent corps but are more likely than not to lose two of their best players in Matt Jarvis and Michael Kightly.

Even at 10/1, Bolton are the smart money to win it all thanks to a lot of the players that the club managed to retain. With the re-signing of Zat Knight and the any-day-now signing of Matt Mills, the team is even looking (dare we say) stronger.