Actuary?

[Cesario!]

Is anyone on this board either:

(1) a practicing actuary?
(2) a former actuary?
(3) an actuary in training?

I'm fascinated how someone trained in the art/science of risk assessment would play the races -- if they would play them at all.

Seth

[Cesario!]

No actuaries here?

Intriguing....

[Nickle]

What does this mean?

[Cesario!]

What does this mean?

An actuary is a "person who computes premium rates, dividends, risks, etc., according to probabilities based on statistical records."

I've always figured that because risk assessment is such an essential skill for playing the races that someone who does it for a living would also be intrigued by handicapping. There are reasons that I suspect someone who does this would not play the races -- not because of risk aversion, but instead the inability to properly manage risk to a positive expectation with the tools available.

[Robert Fischer]

There are reasons that I suspect someone who does this would not play the races -- not because of risk aversion, but instead the inability to properly manage risk to a positive expectation with the tools available.


I would guess most actuaries would lack the "horse sense" to properly go about what they might perceive as a delicate balancing act of probability.
They also get paid pretty well at what they do.


[EDIT] I just realized , I may have been thinking along the same lines when I typed my reply.

[slotterhaus]

Seth:

The best player of my acquaintance at Canterbury is an actuary. Works for a Big 4 accounting firm. We've spent hours talking about enchanting stuff like relative pool ineffiencies, risk/reward fulcrums, median player capitalization as it relates to pool choice, contrarian wager structure, etc. Claims risk is quite manageable if you devote the proper amount of time to areas outside of handicapping. Preaches wager prep.

Plays nothing but single race exotics, tris and supes with slotted keys. I'd say he's in the pace/bias camp as far as capping but is very soft focus, never drilling down into minutiae. His biggest strength, IMO, is hyper diligent race selection and properly weighting his wagers. Very specific in the races he'll even peruse. Info: All Bris all the time.

Knows nothing about sports except point spreads. Big on chess.

Guys like this used to be anomalies at the track, not any more.

[Cesario!]

Seth:

We've spent hours talking about enchanting stuff like relative pool ineffiencies, risk/reward fulcrums, median player capitalization as it relates to pool choice, contrarian wager structure, etc.

Fascinating. These are the topics that I always felt needed to be discussed in a high-level treatise on exotic betting. Maybe I should go look instead in the field of actuarial science.

And I can certainly see how certain scenarios would lend themselves to more managable risk. I now believe that at least half (and probably more) of the game is race selection.

One more question: Would you describe your friend as emotional at all? The human factor -- the handicapper -- always seem to be the X factor in making calculations. I assume that, at some level, if you have the utmost faith in your models that you wouldn't be swayed by bad luck.

[BIG49010]

My brother in-law says I would be perfect for that job, he runs a large insurance agency.


I like the job I have. :rolleyes:

[slotterhaus]

And I can certainly see how certain scenarios would lend themselves to more managable risk. I now believe that at least half (and probably more) of the game is race selection.

One more question: Would you describe your friend as emotional at all? The human factor -- the handicapper -- always seem to be the X factor in making calculations. I assume that, at some level, if you have the utmost faith in your models that you wouldn't be swayed by bad luck.
He once said he was startled by just how many experienced players make wagers that are dead in the water before they open the gate and that handicapper bias is more important than the track variety. I think the latter comes from an interest in behavioral finance. We talk about that quite a bit, too.

Emotional? Not really, classic phlegmatic Swede. He'll feign indignation at a DQ sometimes when the geriatrics at the next table have already called for a steward's head and a Senate inquiry. Trying to be one of the boys.

[bigmack]

Big on chess.
Guys like this used to be anomalies at the track, not any more.
Slot - I've been kicking around the game for a while and with few exceptions most like minded comrades are chess savvy

[Cesario!]

I think the latter comes from an interest in behavioral finance. We talk about that quite a bit, too.


Wow, I just did a quick search on behavioral finance. I don't quite know how that field has missed my view. I vaguely studied a few of those concepts in my more economic classes in law school, but these are exactly the type of concepts -- when related to decisionmaking -- that I discuss repeatedly in my blog and attempt to apply to horseracing, i.e. fear, greed, hope, conformity, expectation-driven analysis ("backwards handicapping") and the vain quest for certainty.

I feel like I've discovered a jackpot. It's going to be hard to force myself to bed tonight with all this good reading!

[bigmack]

Three bested Dr Fager -

Without dipping in a 'bound" or "net" pool - who were they?

http://www.stallionregister.com/images/conformation/quietamerican.jpg
Dr. F

[kingfin66]

Plays nothing but single race exotics, tris and supes with slotted keys.

I'm not familar with "slotted keys," or perhaps I simply forgot. Would you mind providing the definition? Thanks.

[slotterhaus]

Slot - I've been kicking around the game for a while and with few exceptions most like minded comrades are chess savvy
Gotcha, mack. Guess he's not an outlier in that regard. It's just that I've seen some very good board players come into the game and fizzle. Of course, all were young, unmonied types and they just couldn't function under fiscal duress.

[bigmack]

Gotcha, mack. Guess he's not an outlier in that regard. It's just that I've seen some very good board players come into the game and fizzle. Of course, all were young, unmonied types and they just couldn't function under fiscal duress.
Skilled, youthful, unmonied types in chess are my least fav's, as you oftimes have to hit up the parents to cough up lettuce from a series of mates that leave the family with inclusion of the dog out back, merely a financial footnote.

I knocked around CBY for a couple o' seasons in its infancy. How's that joint holding up as it was touch and go early on?

Dr F - Thrice defeated - Whatcha got?

[slotterhaus]

I'm not familar with "slotted keys," or perhaps I simply forgot. Would you mind providing the definition? Thanks.

A slotted key is the use of a single horse in any of the 3 trifecta postions or any of the 4 supe holes. This gentleman will frequently double key in the supe -- the same horse is used in 3rd and 4th, while another is used in 1st and 2nd, cost is quadrupled. His trifecta formulations often involve a single horse keyed in 2nd and 3rd, cost being doubled.

This is opposed to the familiar part wheel exotics which are structured something in the manner of AB/ABCD/ABCDEF.

[slotterhaus]

Dr F - Thrice defeated - Whatcha got?
Damascus, Buckpasser and Successor(?). Can't vouch for the last one but I seem to remember him losing to a juvenile sensation.

Doc (Fager, not Sartin) fascinates me. Did you ever see him run? If so, please spill.

[bigmack]

Damascus, Buckpasser and Successor(?). Can't vouch for the last one but I seem to remember him losing to a juvenile sensation.

Doc (Fager, not Sartin) fascinates me. Did you ever see him run? If so, please spill.
Ma's sis married a Lutheran Pastor in Wisconsin who had a hankering for the ponies. Hey, with Lutherans, anything goes...

Long story short saw the Doc in a far away land called California and drank in every minutia of the race. It's build-up, it's finish and the look on my pastoral unc loving every step.

http://www.racingmuseum.org/hall/video/hof16.avi

[slotterhaus]

I knocked around CBY for a couple o' seasons in its infancy. How's that joint holding up as it was touch and go early on?
Well, Cby, once hailed as a "little bit of Santa Anita in Shakopee", soldiers on. We catch flak for incubating Matt Carothers and Todd Schrupp but it's one of the only tracks in the country with consistently ascending attendance. Conversely, nobody bets as per cap hovers around $40 during the live meet. Pools are shallow.

The impossibly successful Mystic Lake Casino is 3 miles down the road, we're lucky anything's running in Shakopee other than minivans.

[bigmack]

Well, Cby, once hailed as a "little bit of Santa Anita in Shakopee", soldiers on. We catch flak for incubating Matt Carothers and Todd Schrupp but it's one of the only tracks in the country with consistently ascending attendance. Conversely, nobody bets as per cap hovers around $40 during the live meet. Pools are shallow.

The impossibly successful Mystic Lake Casino is 3 miles down the road, we're lucky anything's running in Shakopee other than minivans.
From my locale, downtown by Riverplace, I always resented that drive in a Southerly direction, albeit on trips completion it felt like a good place to be and on an occasional venture was a profitable one.

There was a nearby hotel that had a bar/restaurant that would have a drawing for someone to enter a booth with bunch of loot flying around. One of my chums would rig the deal so that he would fill out entry forms with names only he could recognize and when they called on the winning participant it was more than likely be either he or one of us - as his continued participation brought suspicion. Knucklehead made a killing out of that booth.

Mystic Lake Casino always perplexed me in its meteoric rise from the closely aligned Little Six. And so it goes...

[bigmack]

Wow, I just did a quick search on behavioral finance

So what can you say of heuristics and framing?

[Cesario!]

I remember framing from law school. Concerns how conclusions are reached based upon how the information is presented. My understanding is that it has a bunch of do with perspective -- the example I always remember is that it's harder to have $400 taken from you then not to receive $400 -- even though the net result is identical. The feelings are affected by circumstance, not substance.

Fascinated with how perspective changes based upon the way the information is presented. And, of course, it's very related to handicapping.

BTW, still enjoying the blog?

[bigmack]

Yeah, dig the blog

Got a kick out of the following:

The gambler's fallacy and its opposite, the "reverse gambler's fallacy" are forms of representativeness heuristics, where people

* see patterns where there are none.
* have the illusion that recent results indicate the next ones.

http://perso.orange.fr/pgreenfinch/bfglo/bfglo.gamble.htm

[kingfin66]

Thanks for the response. I like that strategy myself. It can get awfully expensive if you're wrong. It's definitely powerful when using live longshots.