This was a derby where the top horses finished in the exact order they were favored. Nyquist went off at 2-1, which by Derby standards is a huge favorite. Exaggerator finished second, and was 5-1. Gun Runner finished third at 10-1. Mohaymen finished 4th at 12-1.
This almost NEVER happens in the Kentucky Derby, which is known for being a wildly unpredictable race. They simply bet "the chalk" (gambling slang for favorites), which by definition is the crowdsourced results, since odds are determined by the relative bets placed by the public. They could have looked at the top 5 horses (there was one other horse at 12-1), bet them in order of odds for $2, and come up with the same result. The only reason the winning ticket was worth so much is because of the insane amount of money bet on this race.
Prediction: Next year's 'crowdsourced' prediction will closely match how the betting shakes out, and it will fail, because that's how horse racing works. Now, if they can come up with results that are profitable over time for a large amount of races, then I'll start to be impressed.
Well, keep in mind they ran the predictions twice, once two weeks before the race, and then again after the lineup was determined in the middle of the week, switching one horse. I don't know what the odds were at that time.
And, if anyone else has a winning Superfecta ticket, I haven't seen it. So, it's not like this was some easy pick.
They re-ran their analysis after post positions came out, but they didn't really have a big impact this year, since none of the top contenders had particularly unfavorable gates.
If it was so easy to win this bet, why did BING (with billions behind them) blow it. They got one horse right out of four, and they did that by processing all the available information. It's easy to say a pick was easy after the fact.
This almost NEVER happens in the Kentucky Derby, which is known for being a wildly unpredictable race. They simply bet "the chalk" (gambling slang for favorites), which by definition is the crowdsourced results, since odds are determined by the relative bets placed by the public. They could have looked at the top 5 horses (there was one other horse at 12-1), bet them in order of odds for $2, and come up with the same result. The only reason the winning ticket was worth so much is because of the insane amount of money bet on this race.
Prediction: Next year's 'crowdsourced' prediction will closely match how the betting shakes out, and it will fail, because that's how horse racing works. Now, if they can come up with results that are profitable over time for a large amount of races, then I'll start to be impressed.