Rawi Hage's "Cockroach" is favoured to win both the Scotiabank Giller Prize, as well as the Governor General's Literary Award, according to a prominent international sports betting website.

PinnacleSports.com has placed odds on "Cockroach" at 1.87 (bet $1 to get a $1.87 return), significantly ahead of its Giller competitors, with odds ranging from 6.76 for Mary Swan's "The Boys in the Trees" to 7.38 for Anthony De Sa's "Barnacle Love."

This is the first time Pinnacle Sports, based out of Curacao with offices in Gibraltar and the United Kingdom, has placed odds on a literary award such as the Giller Prize and the company can't believe how much interest it has received.

Simon Noble, CEO of Pinnacle Sports UK, says they are seeing about a quarter of the money that would normally be bet on an average Toronto Maple Leafs game. Currently, only Canadians have placed bets on the literary prize.

Pinnacle Sports is known for offering odds on not just sports but major entertainment shows and other offbeat subjects, says Noble.

"We've always said that if table tennis was popular we'd offer betting on table tennis so I must admit we've had quite a wide variety from sort of American Idol, Canadian Idol, to even who's going to be the next Pope," says Noble, who adds they look to customers' suggestions.

"Some of the customers see it as a challenge to think, 'Can you really come up with odds on this?'"

The bookmaker considered many factors when offering the odds on the Gillers, such as the reputation of the authors, early reviews and previous awards, according to Noble.

He adds that the odds are basically just a reflection on where the money's being bet but as a bookmaker, they try and "balance their book." This means that if more people are betting on Book A than Book B they will make the odds less attractive on Book A and increase the odds on Book B.

"We just adjust the prices. So when someone becomes the betting favourite, like 'Cockroach' for the Giller Prize, that's because more people have been betting on 'Cockroach' so we cut the odds on 'Cockroach' and increase the odds on all the other books to try and sort of encourage people to bet there instead but it hasn't worked," says Noble.

Mary Swan's book "The Boys in the Trees" is rated a higher risk at 6.76 but interestingly enough, readers participating in the Guess the Giller contest in Canada have chosen Swan's book as the favourite. They have correctly picked the winner three years in a row.

"And they very rarely get it wrong as well, do they?" says Noble with a laugh.

Hage's novel is the only one to be nominated for both the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award, but most of the money was being bet against "Cockroach" for the Governor General's Award when the odds were first offered.

"Initially when we first started seeing this pattern appear, we thought: is there something more to this or something somebody knows that we don't?" says Noble.

The odds are now in favour of Hage taking home both honours.

The Giller Prize will be awarded at a gala in Toronto on Tuesday night. Watch the event live on Bravo! at 9 p.m. ET and online at CTV.ca.