9 - How Should You Bet?

Summary

The system described in this book retrieves and analyzes data each night and employs a substantial amount of computational sophistication to determine the most profitable bets to make. It isn't something you are going to try at home, kiddies.

However, in this section I'll provide some hints on how you can make your trip to the fronton as profitable as possible. By combing the results of our Monte Carlo simulations and expected payoff model, I've constructed tables giving the expected payoff for each bet, under the assumption that all players are equally skillful. This is very useful information to have if you are not equipped to make your own judgments as to who is the best player, although we also provide tips as to how to assess player skills. By following my advice, you will avoid criminally stupid bets like the 6–8–7 trifecta.

But first a word of caution is in order. There are three primary types of gamblers:

• Those who gamble to make money – If you are in this category, you are likely a sick individual and need help. My recommendation instead would be that you take your money and invest in a good mutual fund. In particular, the Vanguard Primecap fund has done right well for me over the past few years.

1. One theme running through this book is how hard we had to work in order to make even a small profit. As the saying goes, “gambling is a hard way to make easy money.”

2. […]