“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people”*…
Still, people do an awful lot of betting. Legal sports betting currently runs at almost $77 Billion per year in the U.S. and is growing by double digits; last year, 40 percent of people aged 18 to 44 gambled online (sports and casino wagering combined), nearly double the 21 percent of those aged 45 to 54. Illegal gambling (for understandable reasons, harder to gauge) is estimated at (at least) $1.7 Trillion globally, and also on the rise (in part because it’s such a handy way to launder money).
As football season gets underway, Jeopardy! champ (and gambler) James Holzhauer considers the ways in which a sports wagerer is like a stock market investor…
The sports betting marketplace has many parallels to the world of finance: both are essentially populated with speculators trying to make money by outsmarting everyone else. Some sportsbook conglomerates have even been run by people with experience on Wall Street. But how do the two compare side by side? Let’s look at some key similarities and differences between the two modes of investing…
Diversification, insider trading, derivatives, inflation concerns: “How sports betting and the stock market compare,” from @James_Holzhauer in @TheAthletic.
(Image above: source)
* W.C. Fields
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As we punt, we might recall that it was on this date in 1930 that Al “Scarface” Capone enlisted former rivals into partnership to form a giant co-operative organization to control the beer/spirits, vice, and gambling “industries” in Chicago. The Syndicate, as it was known, was headed by Capone and run by a cabinet, with each member controlling different areas of the business: alcohol sales, alcohol running, gambling, vice, and war on those outside the Syndicate.
The following year, Capone was charged with tax evasion; in 1932 he was convicted and sentenced to the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta; in 1934 he was transferred to Alcatraz.
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