12 ms·

When Sports Betting Is Legal, the Value of Game Data Soars

137 points by jbredeche 8y ago

jonbaer 8y ago
"Some legal experts, like Ryan Rodenberg, an associate professor of sports law at Florida State University, believe that, as with musical recordings and other copyrighted material, courts will find that real-time sports data is owned by those who produce it: the leagues and their players. Others dismiss that view. Marc Edelman, a professor of law at Baruch College, said he believed that only "pre-scripted" events were subject to copyright — meaning that while professional wrestling performances might qualify, football, basketball and other true competitions would not."
- rusk 8y ago
  Yes, it seems like quite a departure from what copyright has been applied to so far ... I wonder what unforeseen and far-reaching consequences could emerge from pivoting the whole canon of copyright law to ringfence the value in such a niche area.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Maybe people could start claiming copyright over their personal history. If I start running around in artistically meaningful patterns, can I claim that all of the people who track my location and sell it are infringing? I could start a game of Calvinball and be protected until it finished.
    - GuB-42 8y ago
      You probably signed a contract somewhere allowing location trackers to use your data. Buried somewhere in the terms of service.
      - smokeyj 8y ago
        My signature is a copyrightable artistic expression and not evidence of consent.
        rusk 8y ago
        They're way ahead of you. As such you're not entitled to use their service. Remember when Spotify sought a blank cheque to do what they wanted with your personal data?
- chollida1 8y ago
  Well the closest analogy that I know of is market data from stock exchanges. this seems close to sports data, in that its not "pre-scripted" and the company that runs the markets owns that data and sells it, in alot of cases its one of the larger sources of revenue. I can't see how the stock exchange can own that data but the sports leagues can't own the data about their leagues. Though as someone who used to do sports betting I wish this was the case:) In the sports analogy the market participants are the same as sports fans watching the game. They get to see the plays unfold (market data) but have to pay for that "privilege". In that case even if you are a participant of the stock exchange you still need to pay for the market data and historical data. Sports leagues could piggy back off this I guess. Seems like a stretch tome but I'll bet some league tries this.
  - CamTin 8y ago
    The stock exchange is literally the only party which even has the order flow data, whereas sporting events happen in arenas where thousands of people witness them. I wouldn't think a stock exchange could sue me for publishing order flow that I was personally party to, since that would seem draconian, but maybe I'm wrong. Likewise, I don't see how somebody can sue me for recording the fact that I saw Altuve go 2 for 3 with a homer and a single the other day. Again, maybe I'm wrong. Intellectual property doesn't really make much inherent sense, since it's all arbitrary and socially constructed, so lawyers and judges can often come to what ordinary people would think of as bonkers conclusions.
  - rusk 8y ago
    The stock exchange gather, arrange and publish the data and that's what's copyrighted* , not the actually event itself. If you were to be able to access and compile the data independently you could publish it and claim copyright. This is similar to how the guys in the article are being ejected from the stadia ... because they're controlling access to the source data. * I am not a lawyer.
    - paulie_a 8y ago
      You never need the disclaimer that you are not a lawyer.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- arcanus 8y ago
  Surely ancillary data I can glean from watching sports broadcasts is open? For example, if I use convolutional neural networks to parse broadcast video and derive statistics from that data, how could I not own that information?
  - sqrt17 8y ago
    broadcast video is delayed by 10 seconds. Apparently, that's enough to make the non-delayed stream extra valuable.
  - rusk 8y ago
    As it stands, I believe you own copyright for that data. You've gathered it, composed it and published it. That's what's copyrighted. Somebody else could independently gather that data, produce alternative, even identical results and their work would be copyright. I am not a lawyer but that's how I understand it.
    - ncallaway 8y ago
      This is how other factual data copyrights tend to work (such as maps and phone books). It's not a copyright violation to collect and share the same information. It _is_ a copyright violation to simply copy and republish the data from a given source. So how can a map-maker tell that someone copied them instead of collecting their own information? They insert watermarks in the form of inaccurate data (such as inserting a small city that doesn't actually exist). See: https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/the-fake-places-that-only-exist-to-catch-copycat-cartog-1695414770/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/the-fake-places-tha... and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry. I wonder what kind of fictious entry you could inject into sports data that wouldn't compromise the quality of the data too severely?
      - rusk 8y ago
        Well there's also watermarking for images too right? The idea is that you embed a subtle pattern to the data which only becomes apparent when you apply a particular filter. This apparently operates in such a way as not to compromise the visible image so presumably sports data could be jimmied similarly.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  They are wrong, or at least they are right only in an extremely narrow context. The data, as recorded, is subject to copyright. But the facts behind that data is not. The league can copyright it's realtime news feed, which includes things like scores. But those scores are not copyrightable alone. People watching the game are allowed to tell other people the score. Now if the game is truly rigged (ie pro wrestling) then the "score" is part of a prewritten script. That's different. But even there, fair use is a thing. One cannot stop someone from paraphrasing the plot of a script, such as in a review. So while experts like Rodenberg may be correct, they are correct in such a narrow way that it doesn't matter.
- rayiner 8y ago
  I don't think either would fall under copyright. As to the first, the Second Circuit has held (in a widely cited case) that NBA game data is not subject to copyright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Ass%27n_v._Motorola,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Ass%27n_v..... The guiding rule, under the Supreme Court's Feist case, is that facts cannot be protected. What happened at an NBA game is a fact; the fact itself cannot be copyrighted. Only an expression of that fact (an article or radio segment reporting on it) can be protected.
  - learnstats2 8y ago
    Today I learned that you don't have a "database right" in the US.
  - eric_h 8y ago
    > NBA game data is not subject to copyright That is pretty fascinating. In horse racing (where paying for past performance information has been standard operating procedure for more than a century), there is (at least in the US) exactly one company that holds and brokers that information, and it is quite a profitable business. It's interesting that they theoretically can't claim copyright to protect that business.
    - SimonPStevens 8y ago
      This sounds like it would be a similar situation to that of maps. The fact of what physical geography exists cannot be copyrighted. Anyone is free to produce their own map by measuring the physical world. In theory if everyone used accurate measurements, then all maps would be identical. However a map itself can be copyrighted, and producing your own map by copying another for which you don't have permission is illegal. But how would anyone ever know whether you went out and measured the real world, or just copied someone's map because the underlying data is the same. Historical horse racing data is the same. You could start gathering all the data by recording the outcome of races, and in 10 years you would have 10 years of historical data. Or you could just pretend you have already done that and actually just copy the data from the other company. The result would be indistinguishable. 'Trap steets' is one way the mapping industry deals with this problem - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street - So I would not be surprised to find some deliberate mistakes in the past performance data provided by this company, which should they be found in your data set, would be pretty conclusive evidence of the source of your data. "What colour are your bits" is also relevant and interesting article - http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 - Despite what techies would like to believe, the source of your data does matter, even if multiple different sources would actually result in an identical block of data.
- gautamnarula 8y ago
  There has been a similar debate in professional chess as well. Grandmaster Evegny Sveshnikov has spoken out about game scores--the sheets of moves made in a game that the players write during the game--being the IP of the players. His arguments haven't really caught on, and so far high level chess games have essentially been in the public domain as soon as they're played.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Retra 8y ago
  Funny, I was just complaining about how I find pro baseball dull because they play with such skill and training that it basically is scripted. And on the other hand, I've seen documentaries about serendipitous happenings making movie scenes work. So it would seem that perhaps sports is theater and film-making is luck. Maybe Marc Edelman thinks we've got this copyright thing all backwards.
geraldbauer 8y ago
You are more than welcome to join in. I've started two open sports data initiatives. The world cup is the world's biggest sport event (3+ billion fans) but open data (or data services) are hard to find. See the football.db [1] or football.csv [1] projects for more. Enjoy the beautiful game with open data :-). [1] https://github.com/openfootball https://github.com/openfootball [2] https://github.com/footballcsv https://github.com/footballcsv
gadders 8y ago
This [1] was an interesting article from a 3 years ago about Tennis "Court Siders" - people paid to transmit results of games back to betting syndicates faster than the official bookmaking results services. Kind of low-latency sports betting... [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32402945 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32402945
- anonu 8y ago
  I wonder about the technical details. Data gathering hardware, just one button or two or more? What data is important to collect? Just points? What is the edge in doing this? Data quality? Latency? How much faster are you than TV feeds?
  - aglavine 8y ago
    I knew someone who was paid for this. He attended tennis matches and transmitted by cell phone things like set-defining points (change real time betting odds instantly) and player injuries.
  - eeeuo 8y ago
    It is likely used with live betting systems(common on many gambling sites) where you can bet on the outcome of a single game of tennis. The line for the game will move with each point to reflect the new situation. If a better is able to get information about points seconds ahead of the other betters, they are able to make bets on the updated odds before the line moves as the rest of the betters react to the new information. For example, consider a game with evenly matched opponents. At 0-0, the server might have odds at ~1.5, with the non-server having odds at ~2.7[1]. When the score moves to 0-15, the odds might move closer to even, eg 1.9/1.9. If you're able to get information about the first point ahead of the crowd and place a bet on the non-server at 2.7 when the true "predicted outcome" is closer to 1.9, you obviously have a massive advantage. This can also be used to bet on sets or matches, but the advantage is much smaller. Still, a better with any sort of advantage will always win over the long term. [1] Yes, those don't add up to 100%, welcome to the vig :)
  - paulcole 8y ago
anonu 8y ago
I think it's absurd to try to control "data scraping" at events. Just like you should be able to scrape the public facing pages of any website (as recent legal cases have shown) you should should be able to attend an event and collect any data you like.
PaulRobinson 8y ago
This is not new. Sports betting has been legal in most parts of the World for some time. Football data in Europe is so expensive, very good businesses like Opta can make a very nice living from it. Go get a quote for them for Premier League games alone: thousands a year for only some of the data. For years, people getting into sports analytics have done so via baseball (and the Sabremetrics community), and the NBA because the data has not been seen of commercial utility. It's been collected by fans. That will change dramatically, but it should be resisted. Leagues and players should embrace open data because it will in the long-term lead to analysis that helps them, but more importantly, fosters a deeper interest in their game and therefore makes their own careers more valuable.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  I think it will also discourage the type of cheating that is almost certainly coming with our society’s new, open embrace of gambling.
  - eeeuo 8y ago
    This ... doesn't make a lot of sense. American athletes that matchfix will not be using American gambling sites that work heavily in tandem with the FBI. It would be an extremely dumb cheater that only began to cheat because they could conveniently bet on a site in a state that has jurisdiction over them.
    - paulie_a 8y ago
      Most people generally don't have great opsec and forsight when committing crimes. I guarantee you or me would get caught in an attempted scheme because of a single mistake.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      Insider trading happens all of the time, despite it being pretty easy for authorities to track down the participants when they care to do so. You don’t even have to match fix to alter behavior in a way that has a financial return for things like fantasy sports that are stat based.
sputknick 8y ago
I'm excited to see what decentralized technologies like Augur and Gnosis do to disrupt some of these conversations. The question raised in the article about "who adjudicates data disputes" is one of the main features of Augur with it's decentralized oracles. Also if people can anonymously use a decentralized system to change the odds, it decreases the value of data from these paid sources.
foobaw 8y ago
On an aside, my friend is a full time sports better who has an extremely high ROI during football season on one of those Fantasy sites. He has difficulty making any money on other sports. I wonder why.
- eeeuo 8y ago
  Variance. Unless your friend has sustained this performance over a number of years, it's probably just variance. Most successful long-time sports betters are not playing on a level playing field. In order to beat the vig over the long term, a successful better must be privy to information that is unavailable to other betters, or at least the majority of betters. This either means a novel analytical technique, which is rare, or inside information. The number of people who simply watch games closely and are able to discern information that allows them to bet successfully on future games over the long term is exceptionally rare in the real world.
- paulcole 8y ago
  Similarly, my friend is good at driving cars but isn’t much of a helicopter pilot.
chillydawg 8y ago
I am a consumer of such real time data and I can tell you from experience that where there is no competition quality drops and prices increase. I really, really hope they leave the market open.
forapurpose 8y ago
> Data on the second-by-second action — exactly when a goal is scored, where it landed in the net, who had the assist — creates manifold betting opportunities. Will there be high-frequency sports betting, like HFT on financial markets? Why not?
- chillydawg 8y ago
  Go look at the betfair.com exchange (if you are able). They handle several thousand bets/sec at high load. Plenty of high frequency traders there employing the same tricks as the city boys.

137 points by jbredeche 8y ago

"Some legal experts, like Ryan Rodenberg, an associate professor of sports law at Florida State University, believe that, as with musical recordings and other copyrighted material, courts will find that real-time sports data is owned by those who produce it: the leagues and their players. Others dismiss that view. Marc Edelman, a professor of law at Baruch College, said he believed that only "pre-scripted" events were subject to copyright — meaning that while professional wrestling performances might qualify, football, basketball and other true competitions would not."

rusk 8y ago
Yes, it seems like quite a departure from what copyright has been applied to so far ... I wonder what unforeseen and far-reaching consequences could emerge from pivoting the whole canon of copyright law to ringfence the value in such a niche area.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Maybe people could start claiming copyright over their personal history. If I start running around in artistically meaningful patterns, can I claim that all of the people who track my location and sell it are infringing? I could start a game of Calvinball and be protected until it finished.
  - GuB-42 8y ago
    You probably signed a contract somewhere allowing location trackers to use your data. Buried somewhere in the terms of service.
    - smokeyj 8y ago
      My signature is a copyrightable artistic expression and not evidence of consent.
      - rusk 8y ago
        They're way ahead of you. As such you're not entitled to use their service. Remember when Spotify sought a blank cheque to do what they wanted with your personal data?
chollida1 8y ago
Well the closest analogy that I know of is market data from stock exchanges. this seems close to sports data, in that its not "pre-scripted" and the company that runs the markets owns that data and sells it, in alot of cases its one of the larger sources of revenue. I can't see how the stock exchange can own that data but the sports leagues can't own the data about their leagues. Though as someone who used to do sports betting I wish this was the case:) In the sports analogy the market participants are the same as sports fans watching the game. They get to see the plays unfold (market data) but have to pay for that "privilege". In that case even if you are a participant of the stock exchange you still need to pay for the market data and historical data. Sports leagues could piggy back off this I guess. Seems like a stretch tome but I'll bet some league tries this.
- CamTin 8y ago
  The stock exchange is literally the only party which even has the order flow data, whereas sporting events happen in arenas where thousands of people witness them. I wouldn't think a stock exchange could sue me for publishing order flow that I was personally party to, since that would seem draconian, but maybe I'm wrong. Likewise, I don't see how somebody can sue me for recording the fact that I saw Altuve go 2 for 3 with a homer and a single the other day. Again, maybe I'm wrong. Intellectual property doesn't really make much inherent sense, since it's all arbitrary and socially constructed, so lawyers and judges can often come to what ordinary people would think of as bonkers conclusions.
- rusk 8y ago
  The stock exchange gather, arrange and publish the data and that's what's copyrighted* , not the actually event itself. If you were to be able to access and compile the data independently you could publish it and claim copyright. This is similar to how the guys in the article are being ejected from the stadia ... because they're controlling access to the source data. * I am not a lawyer.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    You never need the disclaimer that you are not a lawyer.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
arcanus 8y ago
Surely ancillary data I can glean from watching sports broadcasts is open? For example, if I use convolutional neural networks to parse broadcast video and derive statistics from that data, how could I not own that information?
- sqrt17 8y ago
  broadcast video is delayed by 10 seconds. Apparently, that's enough to make the non-delayed stream extra valuable.
- rusk 8y ago
  As it stands, I believe you own copyright for that data. You've gathered it, composed it and published it. That's what's copyrighted. Somebody else could independently gather that data, produce alternative, even identical results and their work would be copyright. I am not a lawyer but that's how I understand it.
  - ncallaway 8y ago
    This is how other factual data copyrights tend to work (such as maps and phone books). It's not a copyright violation to collect and share the same information. It _is_ a copyright violation to simply copy and republish the data from a given source. So how can a map-maker tell that someone copied them instead of collecting their own information? They insert watermarks in the form of inaccurate data (such as inserting a small city that doesn't actually exist). See: https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/the-fake-places-that-only-exist-to-catch-copycat-cartog-1695414770/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/the-fake-places-tha... and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry. I wonder what kind of fictious entry you could inject into sports data that wouldn't compromise the quality of the data too severely?
    - rusk 8y ago
      Well there's also watermarking for images too right? The idea is that you embed a subtle pattern to the data which only becomes apparent when you apply a particular filter. This apparently operates in such a way as not to compromise the visible image so presumably sports data could be jimmied similarly.
sandworm101 8y ago
They are wrong, or at least they are right only in an extremely narrow context. The data, as recorded, is subject to copyright. But the facts behind that data is not. The league can copyright it's realtime news feed, which includes things like scores. But those scores are not copyrightable alone. People watching the game are allowed to tell other people the score. Now if the game is truly rigged (ie pro wrestling) then the "score" is part of a prewritten script. That's different. But even there, fair use is a thing. One cannot stop someone from paraphrasing the plot of a script, such as in a review. So while experts like Rodenberg may be correct, they are correct in such a narrow way that it doesn't matter.
rayiner 8y ago
I don't think either would fall under copyright. As to the first, the Second Circuit has held (in a widely cited case) that NBA game data is not subject to copyright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Ass%27n_v._Motorola,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Ass%27n_v..... The guiding rule, under the Supreme Court's Feist case, is that facts cannot be protected. What happened at an NBA game is a fact; the fact itself cannot be copyrighted. Only an expression of that fact (an article or radio segment reporting on it) can be protected.
- learnstats2 8y ago
  Today I learned that you don't have a "database right" in the US.
- eric_h 8y ago
  > NBA game data is not subject to copyright That is pretty fascinating. In horse racing (where paying for past performance information has been standard operating procedure for more than a century), there is (at least in the US) exactly one company that holds and brokers that information, and it is quite a profitable business. It's interesting that they theoretically can't claim copyright to protect that business.
  - SimonPStevens 8y ago
    This sounds like it would be a similar situation to that of maps. The fact of what physical geography exists cannot be copyrighted. Anyone is free to produce their own map by measuring the physical world. In theory if everyone used accurate measurements, then all maps would be identical. However a map itself can be copyrighted, and producing your own map by copying another for which you don't have permission is illegal. But how would anyone ever know whether you went out and measured the real world, or just copied someone's map because the underlying data is the same. Historical horse racing data is the same. You could start gathering all the data by recording the outcome of races, and in 10 years you would have 10 years of historical data. Or you could just pretend you have already done that and actually just copy the data from the other company. The result would be indistinguishable. 'Trap steets' is one way the mapping industry deals with this problem - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street - So I would not be surprised to find some deliberate mistakes in the past performance data provided by this company, which should they be found in your data set, would be pretty conclusive evidence of the source of your data. "What colour are your bits" is also relevant and interesting article - http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 - Despite what techies would like to believe, the source of your data does matter, even if multiple different sources would actually result in an identical block of data.
gautamnarula 8y ago
There has been a similar debate in professional chess as well. Grandmaster Evegny Sveshnikov has spoken out about game scores--the sheets of moves made in a game that the players write during the game--being the IP of the players. His arguments haven't really caught on, and so far high level chess games have essentially been in the public domain as soon as they're played.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Retra 8y ago
Funny, I was just complaining about how I find pro baseball dull because they play with such skill and training that it basically is scripted. And on the other hand, I've seen documentaries about serendipitous happenings making movie scenes work. So it would seem that perhaps sports is theater and film-making is luck. Maybe Marc Edelman thinks we've got this copyright thing all backwards.

geraldbauer 8y ago

You are more than welcome to join in. I've started two open sports data initiatives. The world cup is the world's biggest sport event (3+ billion fans) but open data (or data services) are hard to find. See the football.db [1] or football.csv [1] projects for more. Enjoy the beautiful game with open data :-). [1] https://github.com/openfootball https://github.com/openfootball [2] https://github.com/footballcsv https://github.com/footballcsv

gadders 8y ago

This [1] was an interesting article from a 3 years ago about Tennis "Court Siders" - people paid to transmit results of games back to betting syndicates faster than the official bookmaking results services. Kind of low-latency sports betting... [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32402945 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32402945

anonu 8y ago
I wonder about the technical details. Data gathering hardware, just one button or two or more? What data is important to collect? Just points? What is the edge in doing this? Data quality? Latency? How much faster are you than TV feeds?
- aglavine 8y ago
  I knew someone who was paid for this. He attended tennis matches and transmitted by cell phone things like set-defining points (change real time betting odds instantly) and player injuries.
- eeeuo 8y ago
  It is likely used with live betting systems(common on many gambling sites) where you can bet on the outcome of a single game of tennis. The line for the game will move with each point to reflect the new situation. If a better is able to get information about points seconds ahead of the other betters, they are able to make bets on the updated odds before the line moves as the rest of the betters react to the new information. For example, consider a game with evenly matched opponents. At 0-0, the server might have odds at ~1.5, with the non-server having odds at ~2.7[1]. When the score moves to 0-15, the odds might move closer to even, eg 1.9/1.9. If you're able to get information about the first point ahead of the crowd and place a bet on the non-server at 2.7 when the true "predicted outcome" is closer to 1.9, you obviously have a massive advantage. This can also be used to bet on sets or matches, but the advantage is much smaller. Still, a better with any sort of advantage will always win over the long term. [1] Yes, those don't add up to 100%, welcome to the vig :)
- paulcole 8y ago

anonu 8y ago

I think it's absurd to try to control "data scraping" at events. Just like you should be able to scrape the public facing pages of any website (as recent legal cases have shown) you should should be able to attend an event and collect any data you like.

PaulRobinson 8y ago

This is not new. Sports betting has been legal in most parts of the World for some time. Football data in Europe is so expensive, very good businesses like Opta can make a very nice living from it. Go get a quote for them for Premier League games alone: thousands a year for only some of the data. For years, people getting into sports analytics have done so via baseball (and the Sabremetrics community), and the NBA because the data has not been seen of commercial utility. It's been collected by fans. That will change dramatically, but it should be resisted. Leagues and players should embrace open data because it will in the long-term lead to analysis that helps them, but more importantly, fosters a deeper interest in their game and therefore makes their own careers more valuable.

Spooky23 8y ago
I think it will also discourage the type of cheating that is almost certainly coming with our society’s new, open embrace of gambling.
- eeeuo 8y ago
  This ... doesn't make a lot of sense. American athletes that matchfix will not be using American gambling sites that work heavily in tandem with the FBI. It would be an extremely dumb cheater that only began to cheat because they could conveniently bet on a site in a state that has jurisdiction over them.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Most people generally don't have great opsec and forsight when committing crimes. I guarantee you or me would get caught in an attempted scheme because of a single mistake.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Insider trading happens all of the time, despite it being pretty easy for authorities to track down the participants when they care to do so. You don’t even have to match fix to alter behavior in a way that has a financial return for things like fantasy sports that are stat based.

sputknick 8y ago

I'm excited to see what decentralized technologies like Augur and Gnosis do to disrupt some of these conversations. The question raised in the article about "who adjudicates data disputes" is one of the main features of Augur with it's decentralized oracles. Also if people can anonymously use a decentralized system to change the odds, it decreases the value of data from these paid sources.

foobaw 8y ago

On an aside, my friend is a full time sports better who has an extremely high ROI during football season on one of those Fantasy sites. He has difficulty making any money on other sports. I wonder why.

eeeuo 8y ago
Variance. Unless your friend has sustained this performance over a number of years, it's probably just variance. Most successful long-time sports betters are not playing on a level playing field. In order to beat the vig over the long term, a successful better must be privy to information that is unavailable to other betters, or at least the majority of betters. This either means a novel analytical technique, which is rare, or inside information. The number of people who simply watch games closely and are able to discern information that allows them to bet successfully on future games over the long term is exceptionally rare in the real world.
paulcole 8y ago
Similarly, my friend is good at driving cars but isn’t much of a helicopter pilot.

chillydawg 8y ago

I am a consumer of such real time data and I can tell you from experience that where there is no competition quality drops and prices increase. I really, really hope they leave the market open.

forapurpose 8y ago

> Data on the second-by-second action — exactly when a goal is scored, where it landed in the net, who had the assist — creates manifold betting opportunities. Will there be high-frequency sports betting, like HFT on financial markets? Why not?

chillydawg 8y ago
Go look at the betfair.com exchange (if you are able). They handle several thousand bets/sec at high load. Plenty of high frequency traders there employing the same tricks as the city boys.