A Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code (2018)

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…

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…

The insight about starting from the public odds is so important. It's like running from a polar bear: you don't have to outrun the bear, only your buddy. Not counting the track take, any deviation from the public odds in the correct direction makes you money. (And the public is often reliably biased -- this is why they say sports betting is more about betting on gamblers than on games.) A smaller deviation makes you less money that one time…

British magician Darren Brown aired a TV special called "The System" revealing a foolproof method which allowed him to provide the name of the winning horse to a lucky person who randomly responded to his newspaper advertisement in time for that person to bet on the race and win. He continued doing this with that person for six more races over six consecutive weeks - with that person betting their own money and winning each time, beating astronomical odds and…