Favorite Wagering Activities

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by SentToStud

you're on for a beer!

Nothng like a future wager on a future wager!!!

heh heh, hadn't looked at it that way! I'm actually at a distinct disadvantage on the bet, because the chance I'd remember having made it 2 years from now is about nil. But if you win and remind me, I'll remember it!

Originally Posted by SentToStud

On the Jai Alai, exotic pool arbitrage thing, I live in So Florida and go once a year or so to Dania when someone visits and they want to see it. I do not think they handle more than $3,000-4,000 total per game -- about $60,000 a night. I've looked at the Ex/Quin pools and it's very miniscule. Not saying someone can't do ok with it, but I don't see how.

Just to be clear, it's not an arbitrage (although I'm very partial to arbitrage!). It's merely a matter of factoring in the game structure into the outcome. I can give you an example since I went and got the book off the shelf for the answer to Cardus. If all the players are equally skilled, players 1 & 2 each have a 16.31% chance to win the game. Player 7 has just an 8.88% chance to win. Player 8 has an 11.78% chance to win. These aren't stats from real play. These are from a model that simply assumes each player has a 50% chance to win each point he plays. So, Player 2 has almost twice the chance of winning the game as Player 7, even if they are equally skilled. (The reason Player 8 sees a slight increase over Player 7 has to do with the fact that at some point the points have double value.) I think it's fairly amazing that "post position" has such a big impact on the outcome, and I doubt that this is well understood by the bettors.

I agree that the pool size makes it hard to imagine making much money at Jai Alai.

Note to self. Remember beer bet.

--Dunbar

[hockey2315]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

heh heh, hadn't looked at it that way! I'm actually at a distinct disadvantage on the bet, because the chance I'd remember having made it 2 years from now is about nil. But if you win and remind me, I'll remember it!



Just to be clear, it's not an arbitrage (although I'm very partial to arbitrage!). It's merely a matter of factoring in the game structure into the outcome. I can give you an example since I went and got the book off the shelf for the answer to Cardus. If all the players are equally skilled, players 1 & 2 each have a 16.31% chance to win the game. Player 7 has just an 8.88% chance to win. Player 8 has an 11.78% chance to win. These aren't stats from real play. These are from a model that simply assumes each player has a 50% chance to win each point he plays. So, Player 2 has almost twice the chance of winning the game as Player 7, even if they are equally skilled. (The reason Player 8 sees a slight increase over Player 7 has to do with the fact that at some point the points have double value.) I think it's fairly amazing that "post position" has such a big impact on the outcome, and I doubt that this is well understood by the bettors.

I agree that the pool size makes it hard to imagine making much money at Jai Alai.

--Dunbar

I've spent a significant amount of time trying to devise a jai alai system and I've come to the conclusion that while post position is obviously important, what's really important is each player's average win pay-off. I'm in the process of testing my strategy now. . .