書中自有黃金屋 - Efficiency of Racetrack Betting Markets

[chin]

The Intellectual Foundation of YB

My first working copy was photocopied from the HKU library.

By the time I saw this on Amazon in 2003, it was priced at US$500. I didn't need the book any more by then but bought it as a souvenir.

I did a search on Amazon today (10-Feb-09). There are 5 copies for sell, from US$1,650 to US$2,450!

But for those who are capable of understand and implement the concept, these prices are million dollar bargains!

[chin]

Just happened two days ago I went to Amazon and found out there is a 2008 edition. With the new edition, the price went down to just below US$90 per copy. The editors explains why publishing the 2008 eidtion in the following new preface.

I just ordered the new 2008 edition, plus the Handbook which covers new paper and research in recent years.

[oo8]

Should we buy out all of the original copies and re-post them to Amazon for USD10,000 each . . . . . . . .    

[chin]

 

Let's see who may buy... 

- libraries and schools: they probably buy the new 2008 version because it's cheaper. 
- people not in the business but want to get in: they probably just borrow from library and photocopy, just like what we did   
- people already in the business and not successful: do they have $10k? 
- people already in the business and successful: they can pay a lot, and probably they already have one. 

BTW 5 years ago Bill said he had a few copies and can give me one. But we never got the chance to follow up on that.

[chin]

The books arrived today. Alan Woods co-authored one of the shorter papers in the Handbook.

[kido]

The books arrived today. Alan Woods co-authored one of the shorter papers in the Handbook.

Wow, what a book. At first glance I thought you mean in HK$, shortly after I found it's in US$.

[kido]

Wow, what a book. At first glance I thought you mean in HK$, shortly after I found it's in US$.

Right, that's the book you mentioned.

http://books.google.com/books?id=HX2xapyqENsC&lpg=PP1&dq=Efficiency%20of%20Racetrack%20Betting%20Markets&hl=zh-TW&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

[chin]

Almost the whole book?!

[kido]

No, just some pages.... otherwise no one will buy the  book.

Particular interested in Bill Benter's paper because he's an famous quan who really built a profitable model.

Just a thought of so many kinds of 'predictions', there are 2 kinds of number crunching which I think they're fundamentally different.  

(A) People who build models based solely on the odds/pools/etc figures and construct math. model to fit the past data and use the model to find out any "odd" in the odds and bet on these "odd" such that his expect return > 0.

(B)  People who build models based on past horse performance, and construct math models to model its behaviour and use these whole bunches of models to predict the chances of winning and/or their ranking.

For (A), they're not really interested in finding who is the winner, but care which betting strategy (or combination of strategies) provides an edge to the betting.  For (B), they're actively seeking the winner, they care the winner.  Also, I think there might be (C) , which is the combination of (A)+(B).

[chin]

Using invesment market terms

(A) = technical analysis (think guys who look at price charts and talk "shoulders")
(B) = fundamental analysis (think guys who visit companies and read financial statements and create ratios)