If you want to look smart at your Oscars viewing party tonight, one Microsoft researcher has some good advice.
David Rothschild‘s data-fueled prediction resume is quite impressive — from presidential elections to sporting events — and he’s offered some interesting insights into who he thinks will take home hardware tonight at the 86th Academy Awards.
Using information from prediction markets like Betfair and the Hollywood Stock Exchange, in addition to user-generated data, Rothschild has pegged a winner for all 24 Oscars categories on his prediction website PredictWise.
Here are a few of Rothschild’s picks for tonight, including a percentage that indicates how confident he is about the selection:
Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave (88.2%)
Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron (98.1%)
Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey (92.3%)
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett (98.9%)
Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto (97.9%)
Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyongo (66%)
Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave (95.3%)
Best Original Screenplay: Her (56.6%)
You can see his predictions for the 16 other categories here and here. For more about the methodology behind the prediction machine, here’s a good FAQ.
Last year, Rothschild correctly picked 19 of the 24 Academy Award categories. We’ll see if he can do better this year.
