Black Sunday for some Pros

[QUOTE=Old School;7292]NEVER came close to losing.[/QUOTE] Sounds like you were a bookie. Using your average figures, suppose you made 548 bets per year with 6.5% EV and 1 unit standard deviation. Then your mean is 36 units and standard deviation is 23 units. You have a 6% chance of losing in any given year, and a 97% chance of having at least one losing year in 51. And this is optimistically assuming your bets were equally weighted. Some guys might grind matchplays all week and then blow it on sports each weekend. As long as they bet within their weekly profits, they will never lose. Other guys might win consistently at moderate stakes backgammon or poker. But then they could find themselves with a huge edge in a big game and bet it all. For example, a good online poker pro might plausibly win $250K and then blow it on WSOP tournaments. One "name" pro lost $1MM of backers' money in tournaments fees.

[QUOTE=members;7313]the only widely known books that are incable of losing over any given 365 day span are mb for obvious reasons and pin Check your sources-last 2 years-this statement is wrong[/QUOTE] are you implying pinnacle loss over a 365 or the exclusion of betfair from the list of two?

Originally Posted by Old School "NEVER came close to losing." sure. will someone please pin a badge, star or sticker on this guy?

[QUOTE=KimLee;7352]Sounds like you were a bookie. Using your average figures, suppose you made 548 bets per year with 6.5% EV and 1 unit standard deviation. Then your mean is 36 units and standard deviation is 23 units. You have a 6% chance of losing in any given year, and a 97% chance of having at least one losing year in 51. And this is optimistically assuming your bets were equally weighted. Some guys might grind matchplays all week and then blow it on sports each weekend. As long as they bet within their weekly profits, they will never lose. Other guys might win consistently at moderate stakes backgammon or poker. But then they could find themselves with a huge edge in a big game and bet it all. For example, a good online poker pro might plausibly win $250K and then blow it on WSOP tournaments. One "name" pro lost $1MM of backers' money in tournaments fees.[/QUOTE] now calculate for any given 365 day period.

I am not implying [QUOTE=sundown;7375]are you implying pinnacle loss over a 365 or the exclusion of betfair from the list of two?[/QUOTE] Right from the "horses mouth". Ask yourself why the advertised .03 cents in the NBA never materialized?

There aren't enough whales to overcome the sharps at pinnacle. Easy to understand if you think about it. If you live in some fairy tale world where the originators bet big money and lose then I guess this thesis makes sense, but it's probably not the truth.

[QUOTE=members;7379]Right from the "horses mouth". Ask yourself why the advertised .03 cents in the NBA never materialized?[/QUOTE] ya the nba -03 wont happen. prob the playoffs, thats it. i was originally hesitant to include pin. its not a surprise if you are on target, here. high % of sharp action @ reduced obv vulnerability.

one operator i know quite well that deals low vig - his figs last year approx 1.1B $ volume 400,000 gross profit

Maybe I am just looking at my own situation when I make a statement like the one I made before. I probably place 500-1500 bets a month (being conservative), with a positive expected return. Extrapolate that over an entire year and its damned near impossible to lose (assuming the bets have a positive return). The books basically are in the same situation. The only way they can lose is short term variance (not taking enough bets), poor bankroll management (taking too big of bets), or hanging bad numbers (therefore taking negative EV bets). If you have a 7 figure bankroll and you bet $5,000 a side at a small expected return, you are much less likely to have a negative year than if you are betting $50,000 a side (this is obvious). Personally I feel like 3% of bankroll is a sizable enough play to be my maximum but I very rarely come even close to finding something to bet in that neighborhood.

I can see both sides of this argument. I'm admittedly not very successful for a professional gambler and I don't bet all that big, but even I've never had a losing year in my 8-9 years of doing this. I've come close once and I could envision it happening, but it doesn't surprise me that more successful pros have never had a losing year.