That's not what it says?
It gives support to unpopular opinions and long shot technologies. That doesn't mean randomly throwing away money, it means giving scientists the money to actually investigate odd things they encounter.
And that is the problem. Sometimes odd things are just a statistical improbability. There is a reason I used naturopath as a example, since it's famous for it's throwing away money scheme. And if that (naturopathy) isn't a unpopular opinion and a long shot technique, I don't know what is.
In general, all possible researches have at least some funding, and if they can prove their idea they get more funding. Most often, unpopular opinions are formed since the subject of discussion has been examined and deemed impossible. They are not always right, but in case that the unlikely theory is correct, the applicant should have no problems providing enough proof (mathematical or practical) to back up his theory. He may suffer some ridicule, but he is not prevented from actually working on it. That is how Xartaxes managed (probably) to get enough funding to build a ship which took billions of dollars in today currency. He proved a theory, with small scale experiments, and pushed it to success. System working as intended.
Unpopular opinion in science circles means "If this works, everything we know needs to be rewritten", and while there are cases where that is true, more often then not they are a waste of resources. (Left unsaid that it is great if we need to rewrite everything we know, but there are far better chances of a group of scientists discovering a anomaly then a distant opinion scientist).
Where are you going to find better scientists, in a institute or in a self made lab?
Edit: TL;DR It is literally throwing away money and hoping you hit stuff you want, which is unlikely since you are choosing stuff out of scientific focus. Reminder that not all researches are good.
