Pokernomics

[LittleOldLady]

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Pick up any of his articles published in peer reviewed journals, and/or his NBER working papers, if you're skeptical of his abilities.

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I don't know much about peer reviewed journals or exactly how the academic world works, so correct me if my assumption is wrong.

It seems to me that when a study is peer-reviewed it is not as useful if it isn't reviewed by people in the know in that particular industry. The peer reviewers are coming from basically the same background as the originator of the paper and they may not understand the nitty gritty issues that may make the study inaccurate. So the peer reviewers would miss the same issues that the originator may miss also.

For example, in his NFL gambling paper, it is clear that he is not a bettor himself, so he doesn't know the nitty gritty of how the market moves. He states that the market barely moves based on his limited research, but if he was betting and hunting for the best lines (as most pro gamblers do), I think he would start to see that the market moves more than he thinks. I don't expect his peers - other economists that probably aren't heavy sports gamblers - to understand these issues either, so they can't correct him or point to that issue as a possible problem. So in the peer review, all they can comment on is how he converts data into conclusions, but his peers may not know if the data is accurate or useful.

I hope Ed Miller gets involved in this project. It would bring in someone who knows the nitty gritty and thus eliminate this possible problem.

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King has a point. For example, one section of Levitt's Freakonomics book has to do with predicting what names will become popular in the future. While I have not read Leavitt's book (I have only read about it), it seems that he made a bit of a fool of himself with the name predictions--he in fact predicted that certain names would become popular in the future, when they were already at the top of the charts at the time he was writing. Apparently he didn't know anything about babynaming practices, and never bothered to look at the current status of the names on his list.

For a critique of Leavitt's methodology concerning his babyname popularity predictions see http://www.babynamewizard.com/blog/2...e-onomics.html

So the question arises, is he likely to know anything more about poker than he does about baby names? And if he doesn't, is he likely to consult/collaborate with someone who does?

LOL