The annual Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) tournament presents handicappers with a chance to hit the score of a lifetime and become a champion horseplayer in an event held in conjunction with horse racing’s biggest championship days. This year, that champion was Dave Smyth, a 50-year-old financial advisor from Lexington, Ky., who topped a field of 635 entries to take home total winnings of $607,800 and the title of 2025 BCBC champion Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at Del Mar.

Smyth beat a field of seasoned handicapping tournament high-rollers to earn the top prize in the official handicapping tournament of horse racing’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships. The 2025 BCBC carried a purse of $1,587,500. Notably, the purse of the handicapping tournament was higher than many of the weekend’s actual Breeders’ Cup championship races.

View the full final scoreboard

Smyth turned two entries worth a total of $20,000 (two entries valued at $10,000 each) into a final take-home payday that included his final real money pari-mutuel bankroll of $144,800 plus $463,000 in prize money.

Smyth, not normally a tournament player, was convinced to enter the BCBC by friends on a summer visit to Saratoga Race Course. He won his BCBC entry by playing in a $500 feeder tournament on Hoseplayers.com.

“I said to my wife, ‘We gotta go! We gotta go to Del Mar,’ ” Smyth said.

Smyth was asked if ever expected this win to happen: “I wouldn’t have been surprised [to win]. I’m a winner,” Smyth said, before immediately acknowledging, “I’m just not a winner at horses all the time.”

The BCBC offers deep-pocketed entrants a chance to win big cash and purse money by betting big money into big Breeders’ Cup pari-mutuel pools. It annually draws of field of big bettors and handicapping tournament aces from around the country who target these types of handicapping contests throughout the year.

“I trade stocks for a living. I love the financial markets. So, it’s putting the puzzle together,” Smyth said about his handicapping. “Horse racing is the same thing except you’re not dealing with CEOs and CFOs, you’re dealing with equine athletes.”

The BCBC format puts $7,500 of a player’s entry fee toward a real-money bankroll while putting the other $2,500 into the extensive prize fund that gets returned to the top 20 finishers in the form of purse money.

Entrants must bet a minimum of $600 per race (no maximum) on at least three Breeders’ Cup races on Friday and seven Breeders’ Cup races on Saturday. Permitted wager types are Win, Place, Show, Exacta, Trifecta, and Daily Doubles, excluding special doubles.

Smyth started the tournament slowly on Friday’s Breeders’ Cup races. He cashed some tickets but ended up losing the Friday portion of his bankroll going into Saturday’s deciding day of play. Breeders’ Cup Saturday, however, turned out to be an immensely successful day for Smyth.

Smyth built his bankroll considerably in the first four of Saturday’s nine Breeders’ Cup races. He turned $840 worth of bets into $2,164 in the PNC Bank Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, turned $1,100 worth of bets into $3,150 in the Turf Sprint, turned $900 worth of bets into $1,800 in the Sprint, and turned $6,900 worth of bets into $10,700 in the Distaff by using a mix of win, place, show, and double wagers on Splendora, Shisospicy, Bentornato, and Scylla .

With his bankroll robust at that point in the tournament, Smyth began firing it in. After taking a $5,300 loss when Ethical Diamond upset in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf, Smyth’s bankroll took off. He won a total of $12,500 on win, place, show, and exacta bets on Forever Young and Sierra Leone in the Classic, and then, after losing some money in the Mile, he scored the decisive knockout blow in the tournament by betting all of his remaining $19,000 bankroll in late Daily Double bets in the Dirt Mile and Filly and Mare Turf Those bets included a winning $8,000 double on Nysos and Gezora that returned his winning pari-mutuel total of $144,800.

Smyth’s final bankroll gave him the victory over runner-up Ken McMahan, 45, from Lexington, Ky., who himself built an impressive pari-mutuel total of $139,930 and added second-place prize money of $304,800. McMahan is well-known on the tournament circuit and has qualified for the National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) 13 years in a row. He already is double-qualified for his 14th trip to the NHC finals in 2026. McMahan also finished eighth on a second entry, and his two top 10 performances made him the second big winner of the weekend along with Smyth. Between the bankroll of his two entries and his prize money, McMahan took home $578,480.

There was a significant bankroll margin back the rest of the top 10 finishers. Michael Martinelli finished third with a bankroll of $105,000, which was good for $165,100 in prize money. The top five was rounded out by Phillip Shelton in fourth with $101,000 ($114,300 in prize money), and Fahad Allhani who finished fifth with a $98,737 bankroll plus $88,900 in prize money. The rest of the top were Dave Nichols, Linda Rodriquez, Ken McMahan’s second entry, Lawrence Bergen, and Tyler Hoffman. The tournament paid down to the top 20 finishers.

The BCBC also served as a 15-seat qualifier for the next National Horseplayers Championship to be held in Las Vegas on March 13-15, 2026. The NHC is the only existing tournament with a richer purse than the BCBC, annually in excess of $3 million.

The 2025 BCBC attracted a field of 635 entries, which was 50 more than the 585 entries played in 2024 when Steven Wells, a bar owner from Fordville, N.D. emerged victorious. Other recent BCBC champions have included Sean Boarman, a 43-year-old professional gambler from Lexington who topped a field of 571 in 2023; and Drew Coatney, a 34-year-old racing fan that booked an all-in ticket on Flightline in 2022 to topple a field of 549 entries.

The highest number of 2025 BCBC players participated on-track from the Breeders’ Cup host site at Del Mar. Players were also allowed to participate online at ADW platforms including Xpressbet, TwinSpires, TVG, NYRA Bets, or HPIbet. Some others played at the official satellite on-track location at Santa Anita. The winner, Dave Smyth, played on-track at Del Mar while runner-up Ken McMahon played online at Xpressbet. All of the top eight finishers played at either Xpressbet or Del Mar.