12/21/24
November 11, 2004
Inside the Brain Trust: The NY Times (I used a no reg link) previews an upcoming book by '44' (those are air quotes) about what most gambling pros acknowledge as the biggest legitimate betting group in America. The author, who was a minor participant for seven years, is using 44 to hide his true identity and uses fictitious names for most of the characters--he asserts its to avoid libel liability--but the article outs him and the main character.
posted by billsaysthis to culture at 01:34 PM - 5 comments
Great stuff. I've often wondered if there weren't people out there making a decent living off legal sports gambling. While there's no such thing as an arbitrage, that's only in a world with perfect information. If you can grab years of games in a sport, thousands of games and find something in Excel or your stat program of choice, you could make good money. Of course, the real trick would be never writing a book and never outing yourself. Furthermore, you'd have to avoid the temptation to dump enormous sums on a sure thing. I'm kinda suprised a sports book would take a huge bet from these guys. Are they legally obligated to? It must immediately shift the odds at the book the other way.
posted by yerfatma at 09:56 PM on November 11, 2004
Hence the guy starting as a courier - they must employ a lot of runners to make sure no one bet is large enough to set off alarm bells ("Have you ever known a siren to be good, Mr Simpson?"). Interesting article BST - thanks. I had a friend from my old golf club (I'll call him '27') who bet £10 on each and every soccer match in England and Scotland every week. He ran it like a business, although it was just a hobby (he was a barrister by profession). He had to employ a lot of people to do his running for him as none of the bookies in Belfast would take his bets. He was very good at it. He'd turn in tens of thousands in a good year. I was giving him a lift home once and I asked him how the football was going for him that year. He sighed heavily - "That fucking back-pass rule has killed me. I can't do it anymore." He quit the following year having taken his first ever loss.
posted by JJ at 04:17 AM on November 12, 2004
By turn in, you mean make a profit of? That's cool. And another reason to hate the back pass rule, which I don't.
posted by billsaysthis at 01:17 PM on November 12, 2004
I do mean make a profit - it was small change to him - a hobby - but still impressive to me! I'm not that bothered by the back pass rule - and I think that now it has just become something that people have played with long enough to understand better - I think there was a period of transition where it was turning anything happening in the box into a complete lottery.
posted by JJ at 06:31 AM on November 15, 2004
So much for anonymity! Pretty funny..