This is proven every year by the Melbourne Cup... it's a famous horse race in Melbourne, Australia. Everyone gets a day off to dress up all fancy and bet on the race. 99% of the betters only bet this one day a year. The pros stay the hell away from it because the field is too large (22 horses) and it's too hard to predict. In my anecdotal experience, people with just a little bit of information (trainer, history) beat out the die hard horse racing fans in this one race because the diehards get too caught in the incredible amount of data to process.

The luckiest seem to be the people who bet on the prettiest horse... but I'm not sure that adds any value to your post here.