Mark Cuban's gambling fund

[M.B.E.]

http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000570021684/

[AceHigh]

Interesting. I think Cuban will find it's easier to pick winning stocks than beat the sports books.

[TomCollins]

Sports gambling = negative sum game.
Stocks = positive sum game.

I wonder why Cuban doesn't get this. But I bet his hedge fund gets a lot of the emotional investors he talks about.

[Michael Davis]

If Cuban hires the right people he is almost guaranteed to succeed. His investors will not lose money, though it's possible they could make money elsewhere

-Michael

[ToneLoc]

[ QUOTE ]
If you play the slots in vegas, you can read what the payout ratios are for each casino. 97 pct. 98 pct. If you play long enough, the casino will end up with 2 or 3 pct of your money. Unless of course you go up to the winning side while you play, and quit while your ahead.


[/ QUOTE ]

Worrying quote, especially if you nivested in the guy's fund. Well hopefully he is not going to run it himself.
J.

[Michael Davis]

I meant they could make more money elsewhere.

-Michael

[The Yugoslavian]

I think Mark's point is that no one wins on slots unless they happen to be a short term winner who quits while ahead. In the long run, as he says, no one will beat the house in slots. However, this does not mean that in the short term there won't be any winners. In fact, there will be many winners in the short run (and of course, you know all of this).

I don't see how his quote is worrying at all. I'm pretty sure that there are short term winners at slots (offset for the house by more losers) and in the long term everyone will be a loser to the tune of a few percentage points (I have no idea if it's 2, 3 or more though).

Also, from the article it sounded like he was not going to be picking the bets if that is what worries you. He will most likely oversee the 'fund' I'd imagine but surround himself with the 'smart money' sport bettors who may already make a living off of it.

[TimTimSalabim]

Stocks are not always a positive sum game, yet there are people who make out like bandits in down years.

[theantelope]

Maybe Tone was worried by the fact that he used "your" instead of "you're".

[Acesover8s]

[ QUOTE ]
If you play the slots in vegas, you can read what the payout ratios are for each casino. 97 pct. 98 pct. If you play long enough, the casino will end up with 2 or 3 pct of your money.

[/ QUOTE ]

This quote shows that he doesn't understand gambling concepts very well.

[midas]

Who's he gonna hire to run the fund? The DeNiro character from Casino /images/graemlins/grin.gif

Why make the bets? The smart money always takes the bets - Mark buy yourself an off-shore sports book and wait for the money to roll in.

[AceHigh]

[ QUOTE ]
If Cuban hires the right people he is almost guaranteed to succeed.

[/ QUOTE ]

But that's true of most business.

Why not pick a business where the rules are tilted for you (market), rather than against you (gambling)?

[eastbay]

If he follows through on this, it will become national news in the "scandal" category, and be part of an NBA pile-on in the wake of the Artest incident.

No news story will be complete without the mention of Pete Rose's name.

My guess is that his lawyers will dissuade him from following through on this.

eastbay

[adios]

I think Cuban's article is more or less criticizing buying stocks more than extolling the virtues of gambling FWIW. His comments about transparency of company operations, his comments about company information and the criticism of the SEC leads me to believe that this piece is simply a condemnation of trading stocks.

[Monkeyslacks]

Tax consequences are very important here. If he has a down year, the loss won't be carried forward as it would be with losses on stock transactions. This kills the idea completely in my mind.