Santa Anita Showvivor contest

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by Arletta

Is it just me? Or is there like NO excitement to this contest what-so-ever.

Boring....

That was my reaction, too. When 22 people tied for the high win payout ($132.40), it removed my last bit of interest. (I'd been picking 50-1 shots up to then, after my initial show streak ended.)

Here are the current leaders in the other categories:

Show Streak: 26/0 (meaning picked 26 in a row but current streak is "0")

Win Streak: 11/1 (no streak of 7 or more is currently alive)

Total Wins: 19 (3 players tied with 19, 9 others with 18 wins)

Total Places: 2 players tied with 14

None of these look attractive. Take the Show Streak, for example.

Say you pick horses that have a 90% chance to show. Then your chance of putting together the 27 race streak you'd need to overtake the leader is 0.9^27 = 6%. Even if each of your picks had a 95% chance to show, you'd only have a 25% chance of picking 27 in a row, and you'd probably have the company of others with 27.

Trying to pick 12 winners in a row is probably even harder. Say each of your picks has a 70% chance to win. Then picking 12 in a row would have slightly more than a 1% chance of success. If each pick has an 80% chance to win (1-9 shots?!), you'd still only have a 7% chance of picking 12 in a row.

--Dunbar