Oscar Math

It appears to have been seven years since I last wrote about betting on the Academy Awards, which at the time of writing are just a few hours away.

The 10 years of betting on this event has resulted in a profit of £630.50, with a high of £1,381.68 in 2008 and a low of -£1,780.40 in 2007. 

As I mentioned in 2007, other awards leading up to the Academy Awards usually give a big hint as to where the statues might be headed. Unfortunately over the years, this 'edge' has vanished with many others letting the cat out of the bag!

You can predict the Oscars with math. We’ve got all of this data from previous years — Guild Awards, other award shows, critic scores, which categories you’re nominated in — and we can use all of these things to figure out how important each of them are to predict each Oscar category. Then plug in this year’s data, and we’ve got ourselves a formula. It’s not perfect. Math is probably never going to go perfect, but, frankly, neither are qualitative predictors. I think at least math can definitely add something to the conversation each year. - Ben Zauzmer

So it'll be a more cautious approach this year, as it has been for the last few. 

Of the 24 markets available on Betfair, all but three have an odds-on favourite, with eight (including Leading Actor and Leading Actress) at ~1.12 or less. 

What jumps out at me is that the Best Director favourite (at ~1.22) is Alejandro González Iñárritu whereas you can back his film (The Revenant) for Best Picture at ~1.44 and if this wins, it will be another profitable year whatever happens elsewhere.

I'll be staying away from Sound Mixing once again this year, and I have still never seen a Star Wars movie.