历史与人物bloomberg.com
一位破解赛马密码的赌徒
A Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code (2018)
2018 — 2024，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
彭博社 2018 年的长篇特写，讲述数学家 Bill Benter 如何用统计模型和算法在赛马博彩中持续盈利、累计赢得近十亿美元的故事。文章回顾了他从赌场算牌起步，到在香港赛马市场建立预测系统、最终成为行业传奇的经历。
为什么经久不衰：它把量化分析、凯利公式和真实市场博弈结合在一个可读性强的故事里，对量化交易和统计建模感兴趣的读者多年后仍能从中获得启发。
HN 评论精选
批评文章冗长注水，核心观点其实很简单：统计分析加上彩池制套利
有没有服务能给这类长篇文章做摘要？我读到第 5 页还不知道文章的核心洞见是什么。我不关心他的办公室装修、用药偏好、声音、赛马场氛围或某场比赛的结果。他的关键发明到底是什么？略读后半部分后，感觉他只是擅长统计分析；关键在于博彩系统是彩池制（赌客互相对赌而非固定赔率的庄家），他实际上成了庄家。这就是我讨厌长篇新闻写作的原因：不花半小时在人物外貌、风景、天气里翻找，你根本不知道文章有没有有用信息。
tgsovlerkhgsel查看英文原文
Is there a service that provides summaries of long-form articles like this? I get that some people enjoy reading prose, but I'd like to know what the article is actually about. So far, I'm 5 pages in and still not sure what the insight is. I really don't care about the decoration of this guy's office, which drugs he prefers, how his voice sounds, the atmosphere in a horse racing venue, the outcome of a specific horse race, not even this guy's entire life story. What was his key invention? Edit: Skimmed the rest, and it sounds like he was simply good at statistical analysis. Other key parts of the article seem to be (remember, I skimmed): It was a betting system where effectively people bet against each other, not a bookmaker with fixed odds, so he basically became a bookmaker. The rest reads like many other "smart gambling" stories: - others invested in his operation - he first was treated as a good customer, getting an "API" to place the bets programmatically, then got that revoked as the organizers realized that other gamblers might not like that he was winning so much (from them, effectively) Overall, I learned nothing new, and wasted my time reading ten pages of drivel. This is why I hate long-form journalism: You don't know whether the article contains any useful information until you've spent half an hour trying to find it in the description of people's looks, landscapes, weather, and similar chaff.
指出文章所谓'首次披露'名不副实，Benter 早已公开过论文和演讲
Bill Benter 做到了不可能的事：写出了在赛马场永不输钱的算法……他首次讲述自己的故事。不，他几十年前就讲过，还发表了详细描述其算法的论文，比如 1994 年的《基于计算机的赛马预测与投注系统》和 2003 年的《赛马结果数学建模的进展》。YouTube 上也有他在会议上讲解部分算法的视频……这里并没有什么'首次披露'的秘密！
joosters查看英文原文
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. No, he told this story decades ago, and published papers detailing his algorithms, e.g. Benter, W. (1994).“Computer Based Horserace Handicapping and Wagering Systems: A Report.” In L. Hausch and Ziemba (eds.), Efficiency of Racetrack Betting Markets. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 183–198. Benter, W. (2003). “Advances in the Mathematical Modeling of Horse Race Outcomes.” 12th International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking, Vancouver, BC, Canada (May 2003) There are videos of him (just search youtube) presenting at conferences detailing some of his algorithms too... there are no secrets being revealed for the first time here!
解释真正的难点不是预测而是把优势变现，且优势会被市场侵蚀
前职业赌徒现身说法。用统计方法 reasonably 置信地预测哪匹马会赢并不是秘密，难点一直在于如何从中获利。如果一匹马有 30% 的胜率而赔率只反映 10%，你就找到了'价值'或凯利准则所说的'优势'，长期可以盈利，凯利公式还能告诉你该押多少本金。凯利是香农的同事，其方法被赌场（索普）、博彩公司和对冲基金广泛应用。但问题在于：你的优势维持不了多久，庄家和交易所都会适应调整。
PaulRobinson查看英文原文
Ex-professional gambler checking in. It's no secret that it's possible to figure out which horse is going to win a race with reasonable statistical confidence. The trick - and always has been - is making sure you can make a profit from it. If a horse has a 30% chance of winning a race, and you're being offered odds as if it only has a 10% chance (i.e. 9/1), you have identified "value" or what Kelly Criterion would describe as "edge". You can mathematically in the long term make a profit, and Kelly can even tell you what %age of your bank to wager to optimise your expected returns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion Identifying the "true" odds of an outcome and then identifying what odds you're prepared to take (adding an over-round), is a key piece to what bookmakers do when creating what they call "the tissue" - the opening odds they offer that is then adjusted to manage liabilities in line with incoming weight of money (WoM) from bettors. Kelly was a colleague of Claude Shannon. His papers have stood up to the rigour of mathematical analysis and also make intuitive sense to those who spend enough time thinking about it. It has successfully been applied in casinos (Blackjack system pioneer Edward Thorpe is/was a fan), bookmakers, hedge funds (Thorpe again, but many other funds apply Kelly too), and everything in between. But here's the rub: you won't get to keep your edge for very long. Bookmakers, betting exchanges and parimutuel systems all adapt to deal with long-term winners. Your window of opportunity is limited. Already bookmakers have good systems for identifying true odds for English Premier League games and make a tidy sum on over-rounds (profit margins) as thin as 3% because they can eliminate value. That said, as any fan of Sabremetrics will tell you, statistical analysis of a sport you love can be very rewarding and I would not put anybody off this if they already love the horses (as I still do). Just tread carefully, and to make a long-term killing you're going to have to treat your setup like a hedge fund and always be moving around finding new edges. I'm @p7r on Twitter if anybody wants to talk about this - I could talk for hours and hours and hours... :-)
补充实战细节：彩池制下赔率不可锁定，需额外建模资金流
这是转载吗？我肯定读过这篇。我做过赛马预测算法：与美国式彩池制体育博彩相比，最大的挑战是没有固定赔率。无论你的预测模型多好，还得额外建模预测彩池资金流向。价格不断变动，你无法锁定价位——常见的情况是开跑前看似 3/1 的好价值，最后几毫秒大笔资金涌入把赔率压到 8/5，而你只能接受最终价格。
philipodonnell查看英文原文
Is this a reprint? I swear I've read this article before. I spent some time doing handicapping algorithms, if anyone is coming from other types of sports betting, the biggest challenge with predicting horse racing is the lack of fixed odds in a US-style parimutuel system. No matter how good your handicapping model is, you also have to build an additional model to predict how much of the pool will end up on particular horses. The price changes constantly and you have no ability to lock in a price or withdraw your bet if you made it at a certain price and the price changes. It wasn't uncommon to see a horse at 3/1 when the race starts which could seem like a good value and attract a well-placed bet, only to see a huge volume of money come in with milliseconds left that only hit the board after betting is closed to push the price down to 8/5 and make it a very very poor value. As a parimutuel bettor you are stuck with whatever the final price is.
历次讨论
同类还值得读
开发者无薪坚持完成 Mac 图形计算器：一个秘密项目的故事
Dev stays without pay to finish Mac Graphing Calculator as skunkworks project
苹果 Mac 图形计算器（Graphing Calculator）开发者的亲述：在项目被砍后，几位工程师在没有报酬、没有正式授权的情况下，以“地下项目”方式偷偷留在公司把软件做完…
历史与人物上首页 6 次 · 2009–2022pacifict.com理查德·费曼与 Connection Machine
Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine
长文回忆费曼晚年参与 Connection Machine 并行计算机项目的经历：他分析路由器、用自创的并行 Basic 编写 QCD 程序，也涉足细胞自动机等主题。
历史与人物上首页 5 次 · 2010–2021longnow.org编辑精选负 2000 行代码
-2000 Lines of Code
folklore.org 上 Andy Hertzfeld 记录的一则苹果 Macintosh 开发轶事：Bill Atkinson 被问到写了多少行代码时，回答“-2000 行…
历史与人物上首页 4 次 · 2014–2022folklore.org编辑精选Dennis Ritchie 的第一版 C 编译器（约 1972 年）
Dennis Ritchie’s first C compiler (c. 1972)
这个 GitHub 仓库保存了 Dennis Ritchie 约 1972 年编写的最早 C 编译器源码，是 C 语言和 Unix 早期历史的一手材料。
历史与人物上首页 4 次 · 2013–2025github.comDB-19：复活一个过时的连接器
DB-19: Resurrecting an Obsolete Connector
讲述作者如何为一个已经停产的 DB-19 连接器寻找制造途径，并最终小批量复刻出来。
历史与人物上首页 4 次 · 2016–2024bigmessowires.com