According to the latest betting odds, queer singer CMAT is among the favourites to win the 2025 Mercury Prize for album of the year, but she’s up against stiff competition.
The 29-year-old Irish singer, born Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, released her third album, EURO-COUNTRY, this year. The project received critical acclaim and is a very promising contender to be crowned at the 2025 Mercury Prize awards.
CMAT’s album has been nominated alongside 11 other projects, including FKA twigs’ EUSEXUA, PinkPantheress’ Fancy That and Wolf Alice’s The Clearing.
The Mercury Prize recognises the best new British and Irish music, celebrating artistic achievement across contemporary music genres.
Additionally, for the first time ever, the Mercury Prize is being hosted outside of London. The ceremony will be held at the Utilita Arena, Newcastle, hosted by Sunderland native Lauren Laverne.
Taking place on Thursday (16 October), the show will feature nine live performances from the twelve shortlisted artists.
Previous Mercury Prize winners include Arlo Parks, Little Simz, Dave, Skepta and James Blake.
Mercury Prize betting odds
At the time of writing, according to Oddschecker, CMAT’s EURO-COUNTRY is currently favourite to win with odds of 5/2.
Second favourite, with odds of 4/1 are Fontaines DC with Romance, third favourite is Pulp (More) with odds of 5/1, followed by Emma-Jean Thackray (Weirdo) with 7/1 odds of winning.
You can see the full list of nominees and odds here.
Ahead of her album’s release, CMAT declared that her fans are “all Irish or lesbians”.
The musician has had a busy year, from having emergency dental surgery to the announcement she’s on the Coachella 2026 line-up.
Additionally, in May, following her performance at Radio 1’s Big Weekend festival, she hit out at online body shamers. The BBC had to mute comments on a post covering her performance due to hateful remarks about her weight.
Following her album release, CMAT announced her biggest shows to date, with a tour across the UK and Ireland.
The “Take a Sexy Picture of Me” singer will begin the tour on 7 March 2026 in Edinburgh. She will then perform in Brighton on 9 March, Manchester on 12 March and London on 13 March.
She will end the tour at Dublin’s St Anne’s Park on 30 May and Virgin Media Park, Cork on 20 June.
The Mercury Prize will be streamed on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer from 9:30pm on Thursday 16th October.
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