Who’ll win the 2011 Mercury Prize?

Welcome to M’s guide to predicting this year’s Mercury Prize winner.

Read on, place your bets and take your seats for the annual Mercury Prize ceremony, which takes place tonight from 6.45pm. Highlights will be aired  on BBC2 at 10pm, and the winner announced at 10.15pm. The ceremony will also be broadcast live on BBC Radio 6 Music.

The award, which is notoriously hard to call, is now in its 2oth year. The winner will be chosen by a panel of musicians, music industry figures and journalists in the UK and Ireland.

All of the nominees, including Everything Everything, Anna Calvi, Ghostpoet, Katy B, James Blake, Metronomy and Tinie Tempah will perform at tonight's ceremony. Click here for a full list of this year’s shortlisters.

Here are five things to bear in mind before placing your bets:

1. The biggest-selling artists and albums don’t necessarily scoop the prize. In 2002, Ms. Dynamite’s debut set A Little Deeper stole the prize, in the face of stiff competition from global phenomenon David Bowie (with his 21st album Heathen). And in 1995, Bristolian trio Portishead won the gong for their album Dummy, beating Van Morrison’s Days Like This.

2. The bookies’ favourite doesn’t necessarily count for much either. Betting chain Paddy Powers got it right last year when it gave South Londoners’ The XX the lowest odds of 7/2 for their debut set xx, but this was an anomaly. All the bookies had tipped Florence and the Machine to win in 2009 for Lungs, but outsider Speech Debelle came from nowhere to snatch the prize. And, in 2008, the William Hill chain famously predicted that London dubstepper Burial would win for his critically-acclaimed album Untrue, but was instead pipped to the post by Mancunian band Elbow for their album The Seldom Seen Kid. This year, everyone is tipping PJ Harvey...

3. Sometimes artists need to be shortlisted a few times before they catch the judges’ eye. Elbow had been nominated once already in 2001 for Asleep in the Back, before they won for real in 2008. However, both Coldplay and Radiohead have been thrice-nominated, but were pipped to the post each time by lesser-known artists.

4. Although PJ Harvey is a contender this year with her outstanding album Let England Shake, she already won the prize in 2001 for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Elbow have been shortlisted for a third time for Build a Rocket Boys!, and already picked up a gong three years ago. If either of them win, it will be the first time in the award’s history that an act has won more than once.

5. So, who will you tip to win this year? Odds are in Harvey's favour at 5/4 from Ladbrokes and Paddy Power, with close contenders Anna

Calvi (4/1), Adele (5/1) and James Blake (7/1).  Could it be outside favourite Calvi, or pop sensation Tinie Tempah? Maybe London's unsung hero Ghostpoet? Maybe South Coast electro-pop band Metronomy? We'll have to wait a bit longer to find out.

Previous winners:
1992: Primal Scream Screamadelica
1993: Suede Suede
1994: M People Elegant Slumming
1995: Portishead Dummy
1996: Pulp Different Class
1997: Roni Size/Reprazent New Forms
1998: Gomez Bring it Down
1999: Talvin Singh OK
2000: Badly Drawn Boy The Hour of Bewilderbeast
2001: PJ Harvey Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
2002: Ms. Dynamite A Little Deeper
2003: Dizzee Rascal Boy in da Corner
2004: Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand
2005: Antony and the Johnsons I Am a Bird Now
2006: Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
2007: Klaxons Myths of the Near Future
2008: Elbow The Seldom Seen Kid
2009: Speech Debelle Speech Therapy
2010: The XX xx