I was curious, so I looked up the 2013 pool. CAMJAY77 indeed won with 385 points, with #2 at 335. I looked up the picks, and basically every one was diagnosed with a serious illness in 2012–at least 3 were pancreatic cancer, plus various other cancers, a brain tumor, etc. Many were relatively young, often in their 60s. A lot of nobodies, too, but that doesn’t matter as long as it makes the news somewhere.
Well, that’s obviously exactly the right strategy. I’d suggest that people just aren’t playing for keeps these days. Though it’s possible that 10 years of improving cancer treatments have made this a tad less of a reliable method.