Did Betting Markets Spoil 'Survivor' 50?

Spoilers

The most recent episode of Survivor — the penultimate one — saw the exits of two fan favorites, Rick Devens and maybe the most popular player in Survivor history, Cirie Fields. By the time their tribal councils rolled around, both eliminations seemed inevitable. As is so often the case in this game, the best players are eliminated near the end because they’re the best players, and no one wants to sit next to them during the final Tribal Council. I’m not sure there’s a mathematical equation that solves for that in Survivor, either.

That leaves five players remaining: Rizo, Aubry, Joe, Jonathan, and Tiffany. If I had to guess based on the players the jury likes the most — and therefore, the players most likely to be eliminated (because they have the best chance at winning in the final three) — I’d say Tiffany and Rizo are the next likely to go (without Cirie, neither has an ally to save them). That puts Aubry, Joe, and Jonathan in the final three, and the most likely winner is, honestly, Aubry, mostly because she’s a sentimental favorite and has history with a number of the jury members. This is her fourth time playing Survivor, while it’s only the second for Joe and Jonathan, neither of whom have any cheerleaders on the jury.

If Aubry’s win wasn’t evident based on inevitability, many on social media have been arguing that Aubry has been given the “winner’s edit” in recent episodes, which makes her win feel obvious. That’s probably true. Cirie had the fan favorite edit up until her elimination, which could have been easily mistaken for a winner’s edit, but it’s clear, based on screentime and the attention that has been paid to her strategizing in recent episodes, that Aubry is being given something akin to a winner’s edit.

Potential Spoilers for the End

But if the laws of inevitability and the winner’s edit hadn’t basically given away the winner, apparently the betting markets have. I knew early on during the season that someone was the odds-on-favorite to win, but I avoided checking the betting markets so as not to spoil myself. But I just found a Reddit thread from three months ago that put the odds of Aubry winning at 80 percent.

That’s insane. With over 20 players, and an edit early on that basically showed that Aubry was not playing hard, bored, and often at odds with other players, she was the favorite to win? She was miles ahead of everyone else — Cirie was second, with 10 percent, based probably on people who had no inside information and were betting honestly (if there even was such a thing) and based on their favorite player.

Yesterday, one of these oddsmakers sent me an email that I accidentally opened that put the odds of Aubry winning after the most recent episode at 95 percent. But … it’s a live Tribal. Presumably, no one actually knows the winner yet, including the winner. How would anyone know enough to place Aubry’s odds at 95 percent? I can only assume that either 1) someone from production knows the final vote, or 2) someone in the cast or crew of Survivor leaked the final three and bettors drew the same logical conclusion I drew earlier in this piece: That Joe and Jonathan don’t have a chance in hell against Aubry, who has plenty of friends on the jury.

Granted, there’s still a chance that the bettors are wrong, that someone got the wrong inside information, and that the best player among that predictable final three — probably Jonathan, because he’s honestly played the best game among those left — takes home the title of Sole Survivor. But being “best” is not how this game works. Cultivating relationships with the jury is, and Aubry — by spending more time over multiple seasons with several jury members — probably really does have it in the bag. And to be honest: If that were the final three, I’d choose her, too.