(Bloomberg) -- Macquarie Group Ltd.’s quants are predicting Vauban as the winner of the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday, after the firm correctly called the winning horse in last year’s race.
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Vauban is their favorite in the race — which has a total prize pool of A$8.56 million ($6.54 million) this year — after the firm applied its traditional method that’s been in use since 2007. Macquarie’s artificial intelligence-inspired pick is Sea King.
“Last year, our data-driven model excelled, and we’ve continued to refine it,” analysts John Conomos and Richard Lawson wrote in a note. “This year, we’re enhancing our predictions by incorporating insights from seasoned punters at Macquarie’s trading desk into PunterGPT.”
Vauban was paying out A$7.00 for a win, with Sea King paying A$14.00, according to Sportsbet Racing Ltd. odds Tuesday morning.
The race that stops the nation has been running for more than 160 years, drawing punters who might be betting on horse racing only once a year. It also gives investors and analysts a chance to apply their modeling skills to a different type of market.
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The Melbourne Cup starts at 3 p.m. Sydney time Tuesday, half an hour after the Reserve Bank of Australia’s monetary policy decision in which it is expected to hold interest rates at a 13-year high.
The analysts cautioned Macquarie’s “quant team has limited knowledge of horse racing and the purpose of this article is primarily fun.”
(Updates from second paragraph)
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