Cyclical Luck

[morgan]

The excerpt was not part of a system, just general advice.

As far as systems go, I think they are bad, not inherently, but because they have the tendency of getting people to believe that have the best of it. I know very intelligent people who believed systems could win.

I think the only honest way to write on fixed gambling games, short of teaching probability, is to say for each dollar wagered at roullette you will lose roughly a nickle.

Morgan

[DPCondit]

A guy I used to work for once labored for countless hours on his home craps table developing his "system", he then went to Vegas and made a killing. Later, he discovered that his system was bunk (but he still got to keep the money [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ). Obviously, luck was in his favor, as this endeavor had no long run ev.

Very sharp guy, this guy also studied the horses for over 10 years before he ever really "cracked" the races, but since then he has made quite a fortune (horses are beatable, unlike craps, I mean in the long run). He's also a pretty sharp poker player. He is currently worth millions.

Don

[Al Mirpuri]

This guy sounds like a sharp cookie. The horses are beatable but it takes study not just a glance at a racing mag that all the punters look at. Surprised your friend thought he could beat craps, though. But then, even Sir Isaac Newton held to the crackpot idea that base metal could be turned into gold.

[DPCondit]

I think he was in his craps phase before he "wised up".

Yes, beating the horses is hard work, and he has studied it more exhaustively than you may imagine, nothing easy about it at all. He made a lot of money in horses, then invested in real estate in Malibu, and that is where he really made a lot.

Don

[AmericanAirlines]

Base metal can be turned into gold... In a cyclotron.

Sincerely,
AA

[SoBeDude]

actually I don't think a cycletron will do it.

You need a heavy particle accelerator, like a proton synchrotron.

-Scott

[AmericanAirlines]

Hi SoBeDude,
Ah, but you get the idea. You *can* modify the nucleus of atoms with sufficient conditions.

So, lead to gold can happen.

Sincerely,
AA

[Copernicus]

If hes currently worth millions, he was probably once worth 10s of millions. I dont buy that anyone can make millions based on handicapping alone. I've known some very sophisticated computer modelers and data miners (before there was even a term "data mining") who studied both flats and harness extensively, and they didnt come close to breaking even.

Poker is a much less complex game than horse racing, and an expert can hold a huge edge, and can play far more hands then someone can bet races. How many of them could make a living with a 15-20% rake?

I dont doubt that hes a millionaire, but he has some other angle than handicapping. The best non-poker gambler and handicapper I ever met managed to eke out small profit at the harness races...he had that apparent mixture of left brained detailed knowledge plus a right brained holistic grasp.

The last time I ran into him, driving his Viper, I commented that horses must have been very good to him. He laughed and said no, he hasnt bet on a horse in 15 years...that sports betting was much easier, and you didnt face the exorbitant rake.

Similar to DS he started out as an actuarial student.

[DPCondit]

I didn't say he made it all from handicapping alone. He took horse racing profits and started a couple of restaraunts, and later bought real estate in Malibu. He happened to buy the real estate in the 1970s, and that is where he made the majority of his money. He started out with nothing, not tens of millions, and he lost money at the races for several years before he figured out what he was doing.

I don't know every detail of what he did, and I haven't talked to him in a few years, but I have seen him handicap horse races, and believe me, this guy had/has some kind of gift.

Don

[DPCondit]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is a much less complex game than horse racing

[/ QUOTE ]

Didn't you just provide the explanation right there?

If horse racing is much more complex than poker, than there could conceivably also be correspondingly much greater edges as well. Is this not intuitively obvious?

Yes, the rake is enormous, and this was the first thing he ever taught me about horse racing, yet a very good handicapper can substantially beat the rake. This is a fact. If your computer buddies couldn't figure it out, then they weren't looking at the right things, it is more than just number crunching.

Don