Author: Keith Evans
Date: 21:51:34 12/30/03
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On December 30, 2003 at 17:16:24, Mike Byrne wrote: >On December 30, 2003 at 16:44:38, Keith Evans wrote: > >>On December 29, 2003 at 13:59:55, Mike Byrne wrote: >> >>> >>> >>>The rest of the field is never 0%. Any bookie can tell you that. It might be >>>15 to 1, 30 to 1 -- even a 100 to 1 . but the chances are never "zero" - that >>>would make the payoff infinity. >> >>Bookies are really predicting how people will bet, not the outcome of an event. >>So you're not betting against the bookie, you're betting against his other >>clients. He tries to make it to that he is transferring money between his >>clients and skimming off a percentage. > >Thank you. I was waiting for somebody to raise that issue. > >A bet is nothing more than futures contract. The accuracy of futures (when >poeple really "bet" with their own money is well documented - when it comes to >thier own money - people like to win their "bets". Sometimes they win because >they have inside information - it's all relfected in the odds.. It's not a >100%, but it's better than most single individual prognosticator. > >Here' s a good link > >http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/ > >We are getting off-topic - so for further discussion on the accuracy of >financial futures - let's move it to CTF. > >Thanks, > >Michael This is an interesting way to look at it. I think that Glickman (developer of the Glicko rating system) wrote some papers about trying to predict the outcome of college football games. If I remember correctly one important factor was to observe how the bookmaker odds changed over time. If such schemes worked then I would suspect that they would eventually be reflected in the odds and then the bookmaker odds would become a more accurate predictor of the outcome. I could see how emotions could be involved in college sports though, so there might be some bias added to keep the bets balanced. -Keith
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