How the cards rolled out: 2025/26 entertainment awards betting recap, Oscars, precursors and money making wisdom
Unexpected acting momentum shifts and fake Best Picture narratives
As the betting trio comprising Tony Coca-Cola, The Professor and Max Renn, pull on their lounge room slippers for the off-season hibernation, here is the full breakdown of the 2025./26 entertainment awards betting results.
Across a 9 month period, banking hundreds of bets, there were more winners than losers, and plenty of wisdom gained as the sword is sharpened in preparation for the 2026/27 season.
The Ace Rothstein Award for the Best Oscars Bettor, with the greatest profit on turnover (POT):
The Professor +26%
Tony Coca-Cola +15%
Max Renn -34%
Across the entire entertainment awards season, the I Drink Your Milkshake Award, with the greatest profit on turnover (POT): :
The Professor +38%
Tony Coca-Cola +37%
Max Renn -1%
Oscars profit on turnover betting track record the last 5 years. Does the pattern tells us that Oscar betting expert Max Renn will return for a 2027 feast?
Oscar betting insights: What to start, stop or continue in the new entertainment awards season?
Tony Coca-Cola - StartPaying more attention to the Best Picture nomination markets.
There’s a good amount of money to be made here.
I flopped badly this season (After The Hunt, Springsteen, No Other Choice), but there were still many opportunities on offer, even in the week before nominations were announced.
A great way to build some bank before the official craziness begins.
The Professor - StartChoose your pundit food wisely
The internet is awash with entertainment awards opinions and Oscars predictors. Most are pushing for their favourites, with heart getting in the way of head prognostication. Very few Oscars pundits have the runs on the board with a track record of solid prediction accuracy.
Oscar reporters like Scott Feinberg (The Hollywood Reporter) and Clayton Davis (Variety) should be avoided. While both reporters have large platforms and work for leading entertainment publications, their statistical accuracy is a long way from cracking the top 5 Oscar predictors of the last 3 years.
Avoid the junk food. Choose reliable nutrition instead:
Erik Anderson - AwardsWatch
Matt Neglia - Next Best Picture
Anne Thompson - IndieWire
Joyce Eng - Entertainment Weekly
Wilson Morales - BlackFilmandTV.com
Scott Mantz - MovieMantz
Bet on the turn
Oscar betting markets play an optical illusion. The frontrunner doesn’t always sustain and win. Recent examples include:
The Brutalist: in the lead up to the 2025 Oscars, Brady Corbet’s film was priced as low as $1.50 or -200 to win Best Picture. That’s an implied win probability of 67%. Before then, Anora was way back in 2nd and 3rd line betting for Best Picture. In one day, Saturday February 8 2025, Anora won both the Producers Guild of America (PGA) Awards (Darryl F. Zanuck Award) and Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards. Anora’s dominance that day completely upended the Oscar race, and few saw it coming.
Timothée Chalamet: throughout the precursors in January and February, and despite an uneven campaign by A24, the Marty Supreme lead actor was priced for a 60% win probability to win Best Actor at the Oscars. But then SAG-AFTRA had different ideas. It was Sinners star Michael B. Jordan who won (and was priced a 10% win probability to win SAG) and became the new Oscar frontrunner. Before The Actor Awards, very few Oscar pundits predicted this. Jordan won the Oscar, and for a second consecutive year, Chalamet went home empty handed. In January and February, few saw it coming.
Stellan Skarsgård: the veteran actor had the ingredients for an inaugural Oscar win: A decades long career narrative, starring in an acclaimed Best Picture nominated film (Sentimental Value). But it wasn’t a winning package of ingredients. Instead, it was Sean Penn, who did the least amount of campaigning and demonstrated low care factor during the season, who won BAFTA and The SAG Actor Award in a matter of days. While sportsbooks knew, pricing the One Battle After Another actor at 2nd line favourite, Oscar experts did not, predicting instead Skarsgård, Elordi or del Toro to win Best Supporting Actor. In January and February, few saw it coming.
In 2027, there will be surprises and unexpected outcomes. Always bet on the turn in an Oscar race. Not all Oscar betting favourites in January and February carry that position in March. If you can see the turn before anyone else does, please get in touch!
Bet more on actors
Acting categories are more predictive and are less risky betting propositions (compared with craft categories or shorts) because there are more reliable inputs:
the personality of the performer
the likeability factor
the career narrative
the precursor speeches
With more information on each Oscar actor contender, the conviction of knowing where and how to lay your money increases.
Betting on the acting categories for the Oscar 2025 season was unusually tricky:
Of the 6 acting Golden Globe winners in January, only 1 won an Oscar: Jessie Buckley.
In January and February, only 1 of 4 sportsbooks Oscar acting favourites converted into an Oscar win: Jessie Buckley.
Particularly in the Supporting categories, where a strong frontrunner has historically emerged early in the season (Robert Downey Jr., Ke Huy Quan, Brad Pitt, Zoe Saldaña, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Ariana DeBose), this year was unusual.
With 3 of the 4 acting categories changing significantly in 2026, this outlier occurrence is unlikely to repeat. That is, expect to see a regression to the mean, with more stability and predictability - which favours betting outcomes.
Finally, in relation the the sportsbook favourite for Best Supporting Actress, for 18 consecutive years, the frontrunner has converted into an Oscar win. Not since Tilda Swinton’s Oscar win for her performance in Michael Clayton in 2008, has an outsider won this category. Who was the bookmaker favourite on Oscar Sunday? It was Amy Madigan. The streak continues.
A failure to plan is a plan to fail - use the off season wisely
Between March and September, I read many of the adaptations for the leading Best Picture contenders. This season, the standout was Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell, with Agnes (the character played by Jessie Buckley) central to the story.
Predicting Buckley to win Best Actress, a strong position that I maintained from September onwards, was my single biggest bet all season. This conviction was helped by knowing the source material upon which the film was based.
Use the next several months wisely: Between now and when Oscar nominations, get hold of the adaptation contenders.
Thousands of bets over a 5 year period - betting profit on turnover, entire entertainment awards seasons 2022-26 (Oscars and precursors).
Tony Coca-Cola - StopStop betting on anything directed by Luca Guadagnino!
In terms of above-the-line awards success, he’s really gone cold of late: Challengers, Queer, After The Hunt.
His next film Artificial again sounds great on paper. Again, highly topical premise. And another ridiculous cast: Andrew Garfield, Monica Barbaro, Mark Rylance, Chris O’Dowd, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Hoffman.
But I’m not pulling the trigger early again. Wait for the reviews. Patience.
The Professor - StopLean away from betting on craft categories
Over the last two years, I have moved staking away from craft categories, because profitability was mixed.
In comparison with acting categories, there are fewer reliable inputs in craft categories:
The narratives are reduced
They are more precursor led
Betting intuition takes a greater role, which invites more risk
Leave parlays to Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems
My position on parlays differs from fellow Oscar betting expert Tony Coca-Cola: Getting out of trouble, digging your way out of holes is a risky enterprise.
Previously written in my betting lessons of 2024-25, parlays can go very wrong, very quickly. In an attempt to cover cracks, I only had one three leg multi-bet at the Oscars, and it failed.
A reminder and lesson: Avoid parlays.
Tony Coca-Cola - ContinueLate season multis!
My previous multi attempts were too early and too ambitious, covering too many outcomes: 30-40 different combinations, at $10 each, at (at least) 100-1 odds.
Unsurprisingly, very little success.
This year, I was disciplined: only four multis, late in the race, comprising only the truly locked categories, laying down $100-200 each, at 1.60-2.50 odds.
All four came in, and nicely patched over a few holes.
The Professor - ContinueBet on the signal, not the noise (fake news and close races)
It was a frustrating and erroneous narrative that emerged after the SAG Actor Awards: Sinners was surging and it was a genuine challenger to beating One Battle After Another for Best Picture.
With the SAG The Actor Awards occurring in the middle of Oscar voting, there was no doubt that Sinners would have generated more AMPAS support after Michael B. Jordan won the acting prize and Ryan Coogler’s film won ensemble at this critical precursor.
But prior to SAG, One Battle After Another had too much momentum, too much respect and too many precursor wins:
César Awards: Best Foreign Film (International Feature)
Producers Guild Awards (PGA): Won the Daryl F. Zanuck Award for Best Feature Film, often considered a reliable indicator of the Best Picture Oscar as it uses the same preferential voting system
British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA): Won Best Film.
Directors Guild of America Awards (DGA): Won Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson.
Golden Globe Awards: Won Best Motion Picture – Musical/Comedy.
Critics Choice Awards: Won Best Picture.
Despite the data and disregarding the precursor dominance of One Battle After Another, it was pundits like Clayton Davis who presented “it’s a RACE” narrative. The Variety reporter generated clicks, it drew attention. But the thesis was wrong.
Hold strong opinions, but keep them loose
The year when Everything Everywhere All at Once won Best picture was an expensive lesson. Until it was too late, never did I subscribe to the idea that a weird genre mash up featuring hot dog fingers would win Best Picture.
But it won, and for my betting bank, it resulted in the worst profit on turnover across the six seasons that Lights Camera What’s the Action have been running.
Not wishing to repeat that mistake again, in January I took cover with an investment in Sinners at 17-1 or +1600 odds. Just for insurance. Just to avoid the pain of regret. Because while I never wavered over 6 months that Paul Thomas Anderson’s film would win the big prize, on any given Oscar Sunday, it’s better to be ready for the unexpected.
Return to stats, change is gradual
The Academy Awards mirror changes in society. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) voting body has over 10,800 members. Following recent diversity initiatives, the membership is approximately 35% female, 20-22% from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities and 25% who are international.
These changes mirror society’s push for greater diversity and international representation, and show up in recent Oscar nominations and winners:
Parasite made history at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020 as the first non-English language film to win Best Picture
Four years later, Parasite’s landmark achievement helped create the path for acceptance for more Asian cinema via Everything Everywhere All at Once, when it dominated the 95th Academy Awards (2023), winning seven Oscars from 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (The Daniels), Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh), and three acting awards. It became the first sci-fi film to win Best Picture and made history with Yeoh as the first Asian Best Actress winner.
CODA's Best Picture win at the 94th Academy Awards (2022) marked a historic milestone for diversity, inclusion, and disability representation in Hollywood, making it the first film with a predominantly deaf cast
In the last decade, non-English strength in Parasite, Roma, Drive My Car, All Quiet on the Western Front, Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value.
Like culture and society, change is gradual. There will be strange occurrences in every awards season. Nothing always goes to plan. When the odds are incorrect, the betting objective is to be right most of the time, not all of the time.
To discard all statistics, because of outlier events, is to throw the baby out of the bathwater. In the 2026/27 season ahead, an offseason task will be updating the statistical betting bible that has guided us in previous seasons.
Visualise momentum
In any given Oscar race, contenders and pretenders rise and fall over a stretch that begins with film festivals starting in Cannes mid year.
Most of it is evidence led, such as precursor wins. Some of it is instinct and feel, calling upon your experience and insight.
For the first time this year, I visualised the change in momentum in Best Picture and acting categories. Month to month, these changes were presented in bar charts, published on X.
When Best Picture nomination markets were available for the first time, visualising momentum changes were advantageous:
Rejecting the fandom for No Other Choice, which Neon never got out of the starting blocks in the race to secure a Best Picture nomination. Over the course of several months, at no stage did the charts show that the Korean film was a Best Picture nomination contender.
Seeing the rise in support for The Secret Agent as a Best Picture nomination contender. In late October, the Brazilian film was priced by sportsbooks with a 12.5% probability at 8-1 or +700 odds. I had a different view and made a tidy profit.
Of course, the charts were not perfect. In the final Best Picture visualisation before nominations were announced in January, the tool presented It Was Just An Accident as a Best Picture nominee, however, this did not happen.
Move fast and bet on things
When the trailer of One Battle After Another was released, I was skeptical. It looked like it was leaning towards Inherent Vice, which is my least favourite Paul Thomas Anderson film.
However, when the new film had its premiere in early September 2025, glowing critical reviews and reactions moved the Oscar Best Picture betting markets quickly - from 10-1 to 3-1 in just 7 days. By Oscar Sunday in March, One Battle After Another was priced as a 80% win probability across most sportsbooks.
The lesson: move fast. The biggest and best odds are available in September and October, this is when the greatest profitability is generated.
Ignore the Razzies Red Herring
For two consecutive years, sportsbooks have published early Worst Picture markets with the false frontrunner: Big Shark and Jafaican. Both were priced short, both packed Razzies ingredients and both failed to yield a single Golden Raspberry nomination.
The lesson is to continue to avoid betting on the frontrunner. Stick solid to the guiding criteria for betting on Worst Picture:
Which film has the biggest fail narrative? Snow White was divisive off-screen, while War of the Worlds was top among the Worst Film of 2025 lists.
Which film has bombed so magnificently, it becomes a mainstream news story?
Which film generated the most hate discourse online? The Worst Picture winner of 2023, Blonde, met this criteria.
For the betting trio of Lights Camera What’s the Action, Razzies was a profitable enterprise.
Bet Against Crocodile Tears and Standing Ovations
I was never a narrative believer of Dwayne Johnson’s transformation in The Smashing Machine. The actor’s teary response to a standing ovation at the Venice International Film Festival last September was fraudulent.
Fortunately, sportsbooks in our markets gifted a variety of markets for The Smashing Machine, and the NO button was hit with conviction:
No Best Picture nomination
No Best Actor nomination for Dwayne Johnson
No Best Supporting Actress nomination for Emily Blunt
All three bets cashed, and the A24 Smashing Machine campaign team grabbed just one Oscar nomination for Best Makeup & Hairstyling.
Pay attention between the discrepancy in prediction markets to sportsbooks
On our podcast previewing the SAG Actor Awards, Tony and I rated Michael B. Jordan as the frontrunner. Polymarket and Kalshi supported this view, rating Jordan a 60% win probability. Bookmakers, however, rated the Sinners lead actor a 10% win probability with 10-1 or +900 betting odds. It was a large gap that resulted in a highly profitable bet.
Mostly there is alignment between prediction markets and sportsbooks. However, when there is not, dig deeper and if it meets the betting criteria, pull the trigger.
Tony Coca-Cola - final thoughts and key takeawaysCasting will be an interesting category to follow over the next few years. What gave One Battle After Another the edge? Discovery of an ingenue? Use of non-actors? The main cast itself was relatively small compared to other films, so quantity certainly didn’t equal quality. No match-up with SAG Ensemble, BAFTA Casting, or Critics Choice Casting. More data needed, but good odds likely available for future winners, if you have the nerve.
Documentary Feature again throws up a (slight) curveball. No frontrunner all season. A U.S. skewed topic again gets ignored. No celebrity hagiographies nominated. Always a strong opportunity for some good returns.
As The Professor has highlighted, the Supporting Actress bookie favourite on game day stat keeps on going, now 18 years in a row!
Was the tie in Live Action Short a direct result of the Academy’s new accountable viewing system? Did fewer people watch the nominees because they couldn’t be bothered clicking some boxes? Doubtful; hardly anyone watches the Shorts anyway. (You’re very, very lucky to be in the Academy - do your damn duty and watch them all, slackers!)
The Gold Derby aggregate correctly guessed 20/24 categories, Kalshi and Polymarket users correctly guessed 19/24. Anyone scoring less than that might wanna take notes. Clear objectivity weighs heavier than biased subjectivity.
Max Renn - final thoughts and key takeawaysThe bets on Stellan Skarsgård and Rose Byrne were placed early and even though they lost, they were both solid contenders and good bets.
I had not seen either One Battle After Another (Sean Penn) before Sentimental Value or Hamnet (Jessie Buckley) before If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, but even if I did, I would have proceeded with the Skarsgård bet (though I would have reduced the size of the Byrne bet).
I will continue to bet on prospects as early as possible after seeing contending films (such as F1 editing) but one change will be to hedge on a sure thing (such as Jessie Buckley) when I see it so as to ameliorate the on-coming wipe-out.
I hope I don't have to rely on an extremely risky hail Mary play (a la the last minute massive wager on All the Empty Rooms) to save me from a large negative POT.