A terrific article. And question related to gambling (see excerpt below). Can anyone explain this to me?
Bill Benter did the impossible: He wrote an algorithm that couldn’t lose at the track. Close to a billion dollars later, he tells his story for the first time.
www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-...he-horse-racing-code
I thought Vegas odds change as people bet on particular teams...like the "parimutuel system" mentioned in this paragraph
Hong Kong racing uses a parimutuel (also known as “totalizer”) system. Unlike odds in a Vegas sportsbook, which are set in advance and give a decisive edge to the house, parimutuel odds are updated fluidly, in proportion to how bettors wager. Winners split the pool, and the house skims a commission of about 17 percent. (After costs, the Jockey Club’s take goes to charity and the state, providing as much as a tenth of Hong Kong’s tax revenue.) To make money, Benter would have to do more than pick winners: He needed to make bets with a profit margin greater than the club’s 17 percent cut.
