

Calculated Bets: how a CS prof developed a winning sports gambling system - henning
http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~skiena/jaialai/

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heyitsnick
To offer a balance, there's some negative feedback on amazon UK:

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Calculated-Bets-Computers-
Gambling-M...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Calculated-Bets-Computers-Gambling-
Mathematical/dp/0521009626/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272162240&sr=8-1)

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wtn
I found this book at the local public library back in 2008.

Skiena writes about how he became a profitable jai alai bettor with some
historical data. It's an interesting book if you don't know much about
gambling or modeling.

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ojbyrne
So I haven't read it, but if it works, why is he sharing it?

I had a prof in grad school
([http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/management/faculty_staff/a...](http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/management/faculty_staff/academic_professors/708.htm))
who worked out an arbitrage system for horse racing. Other than publishing a
few obscure papers, he kept it to himself. Because it wouldn't actually work
if he shared it to a mass market.

Just asking, before I go and read the page in depth.

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hyperbovine
Gee, it's almost as if some people are motivated by things besides money...

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ojbyrne
If that was true, he'd have the entire book on the website, instead of
excerpts.

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hyperbovine
That's a fair point. OTOH a lot of people who take the trouble to write a book
would like to see it in print, and almost all publishers forbid you from
releasing the manuscript in alternate forms once it has been published. Also,
for somebody with his skill set, there are many shorter paths to riches than
writing MAA monographs.

If you just read even the preface to this book (
[http://books.google.com/books?id=UvWGgaE4ZA8C&lpg=PP1...](http://books.google.com/books?id=UvWGgaE4ZA8C&lpg=PP1&dq=calculated%20bets&pg=PR11#v=onepage&q&f=false)
), it is obvious that his motivation for writing it has everything to do with
a lifelong fascination with mathematical modeling and sincere desire to share
that with others, and nothing to do with making money from gambling returns.
The gambling was merely meant to put his model to the test in a way that
penalized failure.

It's all right there in the book. But hey, why consult the text when we can
all sit around grousing online about what his intentions _might_ have been?

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dedward
Whether parimutuel bets or your more traditional sports bookie, betting is
basically like any other market. If you can predict it's outcome better than
the rest of the market - you can beat it.

As someone else once told me, betting on sports is just like playing the stock
market, except the market is smaller, with far fewer variables, and therefore
easier to predict.

It's just like people who have stock trading systems in some market that are
unbeatable - they very well may be true - but only for a limited time, as
their trades themselves affect the market.

Arbitrage is another thing - on one hand, it may seem dishonest - it's looking
for no-loose opportunities and taking advantage of them - on the other hand,
an efficient arbitrage system keeps markets fair and moving. (In a perfect
market, there would be no room for arbitrage.)

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mikecane
I read this book ages ago. It's not a "how-to" manual, as some people here
seem to think. It's a mathematical adventure, how his childhood lucky bet set
him on a particular obsession to see if such betting was amenable to
mathematical analysis and prediction. I'll leave it up to you math experts to
criticize the math in the book itself, but it was a really fun read even for
someone like me, who can only do basic arithmetic. I guess that makes it sound
like I'm easily impressed, but this is my way of saying it's also a good way
to _advocate_ the usefulness of math to people who don't see its real-world
practical aspects.

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fuzzythinker
Ah, the same Steve Skiena (I think) of Algorithm Design Manual, the best algo
book imho.

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zavulon
Wow I had this professor in Stony Brook... I think my first computer science
class, too, if memory serves me correctly, it's been a while.

Gotta check this book out. Thanks!

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nodogbite
[http://techguyinmidtown.com/2010/04/29/calculated-bets-by-
st...](http://techguyinmidtown.com/2010/04/29/calculated-bets-by-steven-
skiena/)

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mathewgj
Thanks for posting - it only took about 2 minutes on the site before I clicked
through and bought it on Amazon!

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nodogbite
Same here. Insta-downloaded to my Kindle, and I'm reading it already.

