5 ms·

Why not just gamble on Wall Street with fancy algos and options?

abakker 7y ago
if you suspect you aren't the most sophisticated gambler, then maybe it doesn't pay? Honestly, sports betting is orders of magnitude less sophisticated than Wall Street, so you have a better chance of finding an edge that others haven't also found.
- kratom_sandwich 7y ago
  Also, it's easy to imagine that there are a lot of "unskilled" betters, i.e. old folks betting for the thrill of it, people betting a few bucks just for kicks, ... With wall street, there might be a few unskilled people, but they are probably a small minority.
- user5994461 7y ago
  They're both the exact same thing when it comes to exchanges. I was working for a betting exchange and a market maker for a while, taking 500 orders a second and arbitraging between different competitors, before moving back to finance. It's quite interesting actually. A lot of the market is not tradable though. On one end of the market, gambling is often a state monopoly with high spread and high margins (if not prohibited entirely), while on the other end there are large trades going on in private or closed circles.
Mathnerd314 7y ago
Wall Street has a higher barrier to entry, AFAICT. Hedge funds need capital and subscriptions to proprietary signals, HFT needs colocation. But there are enough one-offs of people making money on Wall Street that I suspect it is (relatively) common, just not reported on in the news.
blackflame7000 7y ago
Because in sport, all the information is out in the open whereas in wall street it is concealed in boardroom deals.
- ses1984 7y ago
  >in sport, all the information is out in the open LOL.
  - blackflame7000 7y ago
    So I guess in your mind, pro's watch tape of their opponents for fun?
    - ses1984 7y ago
      My brother in law is a physical therapist. He was recently flown first class to treat a starting NFL quarterback. Do you think what transpired during that appointment is public?
      - blackflame7000 7y ago
        The NFL requires teams to report all injuries no matter how minor. https://operations.nfl.com/media/2683/2017-nfl-injury-report-policy.pdf https://operations.nfl.com/media/2683/2017-nfl-injury-report...
        ses1984 7y ago
        Ok and? Is the report the same as being there?
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        Is reading a quarterly earnings report the same as being in the boardroom? Of course not. If perfect knowledge were attainable this whole money-making business would be a lot easier. In sports, you can get information on how a player has performed historically as well as recently in order to make educated guesses on how they will perform in the future. In business, you have no access to R&D information. You have no idea if a company's past success will bring future success. You have no way of knowing if they have hit a snag or a breakthrough in R&D until after it's hit the market and if you do, you are likely breaking insider trading laws. In sports, you can study your opponent to predict what they might do. In business, you can really only study what your opponent did during the actual game so to speak. For example, Microsoft can't wait for Sony to release the PS4 in order to develop a game plan for the Xbox. Both have to put forward their best effort regardless of what the competition may or may not do. In sport, you are training to beat 1 opponent, in business you are trying to appeal to the whims of the multifaceted consumer which aren't nearly as concrete.
jjuel 7y ago
Sports interests me more. I would rather spend time looking at sports analytics than Wall Street analytics.
hogFeast 7y ago
ROI is insane. If you made 20% a year on Wall Street, you are crushing it. You can make 20% a month in sports gambling with a fairly pedestrian strategy. The only issue is that you can't scale well but this only becomes an issue when you need to put down tens of million a week (i.e. when you have $50m+). The barriers to entry are also getting higher as competition is increasing in the space (although limits are probably going up too). One big issue right now is data. If you bet on soccer (the sport with the highest limits), you need to spend at least $100-200k/year (before hiring programmers) on data to become competitive.
- paulpauper 7y ago
  >You can make 20% a month in sports gambling with a fairly pedestrian strategy. then after 2 years you would have billions of dollars. yeah right
  - ucha 7y ago
    Parent comment said you can't scale.
    - paulpauper 7y ago
      Sports betting is huge. this is not 30 years ago. you can easily scale millions into bets/ and most ppl would be very happy to make $30 million out of $5k or so over a decade.
  - hogFeast 7y ago
    Yes, most of the people at the top are billionaires. Tony Bloom owns Brighton FC, Benter is a billionaire (probably, he made several hundred million in HK), Billy Walters is likely close, Ranogajec, Alan Woods is close, Benham is likely close (or was before he decided to buy several football clubs). The issue, as I said initially, is that you aren't scalable past $100m or so (without connections to the Asian books, which some people above have...apparently, some of the guys are able to put down multiple millions on most European soccer leagues...which isn't available to most). But yes, most of the funds run by the above people have been making 100%+ for years.
samstave 7y ago
Because you need very fast network cards and a lot of fiber. So the costs are much higher... (I cant recall the name of the company that makes these super highend net cards, which hedgefunds prefer)
davidmr 7y ago
You can do both. Job postings from at least a couple well-known HFT firms shows that they’re getting into sports betting.
bori5 7y ago
When you use somebody else’s money it’s called trading.

if you suspect you aren't the most sophisticated gambler, then maybe it doesn't pay? Honestly, sports betting is orders of magnitude less sophisticated than Wall Street, so you have a better chance of finding an edge that others haven't also found.

kratom_sandwich 7y ago
Also, it's easy to imagine that there are a lot of "unskilled" betters, i.e. old folks betting for the thrill of it, people betting a few bucks just for kicks, ... With wall street, there might be a few unskilled people, but they are probably a small minority.
user5994461 7y ago
They're both the exact same thing when it comes to exchanges. I was working for a betting exchange and a market maker for a while, taking 500 orders a second and arbitraging between different competitors, before moving back to finance. It's quite interesting actually. A lot of the market is not tradable though. On one end of the market, gambling is often a state monopoly with high spread and high margins (if not prohibited entirely), while on the other end there are large trades going on in private or closed circles.

Mathnerd314 7y ago

Wall Street has a higher barrier to entry, AFAICT. Hedge funds need capital and subscriptions to proprietary signals, HFT needs colocation. But there are enough one-offs of people making money on Wall Street that I suspect it is (relatively) common, just not reported on in the news.

blackflame7000 7y ago

Because in sport, all the information is out in the open whereas in wall street it is concealed in boardroom deals.

ses1984 7y ago
>in sport, all the information is out in the open LOL.
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  So I guess in your mind, pro's watch tape of their opponents for fun?
  - ses1984 7y ago
    My brother in law is a physical therapist. He was recently flown first class to treat a starting NFL quarterback. Do you think what transpired during that appointment is public?
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      The NFL requires teams to report all injuries no matter how minor. https://operations.nfl.com/media/2683/2017-nfl-injury-report-policy.pdf https://operations.nfl.com/media/2683/2017-nfl-injury-report...
      - ses1984 7y ago
        Ok and? Is the report the same as being there?
        blackflame7000 7y ago
        Is reading a quarterly earnings report the same as being in the boardroom? Of course not. If perfect knowledge were attainable this whole money-making business would be a lot easier. In sports, you can get information on how a player has performed historically as well as recently in order to make educated guesses on how they will perform in the future. In business, you have no access to R&D information. You have no idea if a company's past success will bring future success. You have no way of knowing if they have hit a snag or a breakthrough in R&D until after it's hit the market and if you do, you are likely breaking insider trading laws. In sports, you can study your opponent to predict what they might do. In business, you can really only study what your opponent did during the actual game so to speak. For example, Microsoft can't wait for Sony to release the PS4 in order to develop a game plan for the Xbox. Both have to put forward their best effort regardless of what the competition may or may not do. In sport, you are training to beat 1 opponent, in business you are trying to appeal to the whims of the multifaceted consumer which aren't nearly as concrete.

jjuel 7y ago

Sports interests me more. I would rather spend time looking at sports analytics than Wall Street analytics.

hogFeast 7y ago

ROI is insane. If you made 20% a year on Wall Street, you are crushing it. You can make 20% a month in sports gambling with a fairly pedestrian strategy. The only issue is that you can't scale well but this only becomes an issue when you need to put down tens of million a week (i.e. when you have $50m+). The barriers to entry are also getting higher as competition is increasing in the space (although limits are probably going up too). One big issue right now is data. If you bet on soccer (the sport with the highest limits), you need to spend at least $100-200k/year (before hiring programmers) on data to become competitive.

paulpauper 7y ago
>You can make 20% a month in sports gambling with a fairly pedestrian strategy. then after 2 years you would have billions of dollars. yeah right
- ucha 7y ago
  Parent comment said you can't scale.
  - paulpauper 7y ago
    Sports betting is huge. this is not 30 years ago. you can easily scale millions into bets/ and most ppl would be very happy to make $30 million out of $5k or so over a decade.
- hogFeast 7y ago
  Yes, most of the people at the top are billionaires. Tony Bloom owns Brighton FC, Benter is a billionaire (probably, he made several hundred million in HK), Billy Walters is likely close, Ranogajec, Alan Woods is close, Benham is likely close (or was before he decided to buy several football clubs). The issue, as I said initially, is that you aren't scalable past $100m or so (without connections to the Asian books, which some people above have...apparently, some of the guys are able to put down multiple millions on most European soccer leagues...which isn't available to most). But yes, most of the funds run by the above people have been making 100%+ for years.

samstave 7y ago

Because you need very fast network cards and a lot of fiber. So the costs are much higher... (I cant recall the name of the company that makes these super highend net cards, which hedgefunds prefer)

davidmr 7y ago

You can do both. Job postings from at least a couple well-known HFT firms shows that they’re getting into sports betting.

bori5 7y ago

When you use somebody else’s money it’s called trading.