So I just saw these bets offered by my online betting provider of choice:



I mean there's gotta be a better than 50:50 chance that some other eligible famous actor dies within the next six months? I could think of more than a few: Douglas (98), Day (93), Poitier (88), Eastwood (85), Connery (84), MacLaine (81) or Loren (80) come to mind.

Other notables in the 80+ league are Shatner, Sutherland, Caine and Wilder. I could even see Stan "Spiderman" Lee (92) coming last. There should be at least another 10 having a shot at making it after Sharif or Lee in the "in Memoriam" sequences when looking 60+. Not to speak of younger famous movie stars (say Johansson, DiCaprio) which might die before their time, especially if under (god forbid) tragic circumstances.

So should I take the bet on "Any other candidate" (lol "candidate")? Should I wait for better odds? They gotta adjust the odds over time, right? Like about 3 months from now, the odds should double if still only Sharif and Lee are set?

Of course it would be horrible if Douglas goes before I take the bet. He would be included for sure, and the odds for "Any other candidate" probably drop below 2. On the upside, sure bet on Douglas imo.

Thoughts? Maybe betting asap to take advantage of the hot summer temperatures is the prudent choice? Are there any better odds somewhere? Who do you think comes last?

In before rip Doyle

I can be your hitman.

I snap bet other candidates

First of all, my dearest Doris is 91 years old, not 93. Second, I find this kind of betting rather distasteful. I'm sure Clint (who is practically Doris' neighbor) agrees with me: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094963/.

Lock in sharif now. Take other as odds increase.

I agree that is a line offered in poor taste.

U locked my thread once, don't pretend u have morals xD

I rarely watch the Oscars but do they always show the most most "popular" death last? Or is there some variance involved?

Anyway, you might find this useful
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

You can see the odds of someone dying at each age in the given year.

Kirk Douglas alone is like 32%. Do the math with actors who are more aclaimed than Shariff and Lee, consider it's only 6 months until the oscars

from what i remember, isn't it usually alphabetical order? Or starting from the first "of the year" , to the most recent?

Again I'm screwed if Douglas is set before I take the "other candidate" bet; and Douglas will be below 2.

Dunno tbh but the odds favoring Sharif indicate so; and clearly Sharif > Lee.

This is exciting stuff! I played around with the numbers a little. When I add up the numbers for Brooks (totally forgot him in the OP), Douglas, Day, Eastwood, Loren, Caine and Wilder, I get a 50% for a 6 month time span. I add another 5% for Poitier, Connery and MacLaine (they add up to 15%, but I doubt somewhat that they beat Sharif.

When we go in the 60-80 tier (1.5% average for 6 months) and assume another 10 candidates > Sharif, we can add another whooping 15%.

So that gives us a 70% chance that there will be someone coming after Sharif and Lee in the "In Memoriam" sequences. I consider this a save lower bound and assume the right number to be more like >80%.

So this is too good to pass up, right? And better now than later, right? I don't think they will adjust the odds on this often. Anyone knows how Brooks is doing?

God damn it Morph, I don't want to think about Doris Day dying!

You mad? I will wreck you

You can't just pull straight from the actuarial tables, you need to adjust for the fact that their demographic will be in significantly better health than the overall population

Honestly had never heard of Sharif before this thread. As stated earlier, I think the other candidates is great value.

Don't forget it could be a director as well, like Forman, Bertolucci and Ivory. The field seems like a really good bet.

Also: are you seriously doubting that Poitier or Connery would 'beat' Sharif?

It appears you should money on bastard.

Also, it's been a while since my statistics course, but I do know that if you just keeping adding percentages together you'll end up with more than 100%, so that can't be right.

You're right but I don't think it makes a ton of difference in this case. When you get over 80 chances are you live in an environment with more than decent nutrition, medical care etc anyway.

Sharif is a heavyweight, defo need A-listers to beat him.

good point, so these 3 alone give us like an extra 10%? Maybe an overall 20 for the directors group? Has a director appeared last in the "In Memoriam" sequence before?

Edit: just this year: Nichols! >Williams no less!



They also honor writers, producers, effects people and whatnot, but I doubt there is someone in that group >Sharif

Hoffman > Gandolfini in 2014 btw, so circumstances do matter.



I wanted to make a conservative guess, so all the better if I'm wrong; that would give us another 10%! both defo >Lee though.

Yeah it's more of an expectation than a probability. I mean pick a group of people and you can figure out a timespan during which you can expect a certain number of them to die:

I just meant that you can't find five people with a 10% chance of dying, and calculate that there's a 50% chance that one of them dies. It's less, and possibly much less.

Yeah the correct way is to multiply the survival probabilities, and subtract that from 100%. When I do that for our 80+ tier + directors, I get to a 54% save lower bound, with the right number probably like 60%-65%.

So clearly +EV, right?

The chance of at least one of a group of people dying during your period of interest is

1-(1-p)^c

where p is the chance of one of them dying (.1) and c is the number of people you're considering (5).

in this case, 40.95%

^ that's basically what I did, just with the individual death rates, and more than 5 people.

So I booked it:

Gotta take vacation for the Oscar's next year lol