By the Bookie: A Bookmaker's Guide to the Oscars

It’s a tricky business, predicting the outcome of the Academy Awards, but luckily there are professionals who make money doing just that. To help you out in your pre-Oscars speculation, Paste got ahold of some odds from Mickey Richardson, CEO of BookMaker.com, on who is most likely to walk away with the little gold man come Sunday night.

For entertainment bets, a bookmaker determines the odds in an actor or film’s favor by rigorously studying media reports and the opinions of critics, and then adjusting their book and taking bets to profit their organization. The odds of an event occurring will never add up to one hundred, percentage-wise, to leave a decent profit margin for the company orchestrating the betting. The numbers below reflect BookMaker.com’s predictions as to who has the best shot.

According to Richardson, the Best Picture is nearly a toss-up; Avatar has a 46% chance of winning and The Hurt Locker has a 56% chance. Jeff Bridges has a clear lead for Best Actor, with an 89% chance, and while Sandra Bullock has a jump-start with a 65% chance, Meryl Streep is following behind with a significant 36%. Katherine Bigelow outstrips her ex with 82% to his 25%, and Up in the Air and Up lead in the categories of Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Animated Film respectively. Christopher Waltz and Mo’Nique leave all the other contestants in the dust for the Best Supporting Actor/Actress Categories, Star Trek leads for Best Makeup and “The Weary Kind” similarly stamps out all competition for Best Original Song. Although “The White Ribbon” leads with a 61% chance of winning Best Foreign Language Film, The Prophet has a decent 37% chance and China’s Unnatural Disaster has a 56% chance of winning best documentary. And finally, for Best Original Screenplay, Inglorious Basterds is ahead with a 67% shot at winning.

Happy betting!