[[{“value”:”Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary: In his second appearance, Nate Silver joins the show to cover the intersections of predictions, politics, and poker with Tyler. They tackle how coin flips solve status quo bias, gambling’s origins in divination, what kinds of betting Nate would ban, why he’s been
The post My excellent Conversation with Nate Silver appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]]
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary:
In his second appearance, Nate Silver joins the show to cover the intersections of predictions, politics, and poker with Tyler. They tackle how coin flips solve status quo bias, gambling’s origins in divination, what kinds of betting Nate would ban, why he’s been limited on several of the New York sports betting sites, how game theory changed poker tournaments, whether poker players make for good employees, running and leaving FiveThirtyEight, why funky batting stances have disappeared, AI’s impact on sports analytics, the most underrated NBA statistic, Sam Bankman-Fried’s place in “the River,” the trait effective altruists need to develop, the stupidest risks Tyler and Nate would take, prediction markets, how many monumental political decisions have been done under the influence of drugs, and more.
Here is one excerpt:
COWEN: Why shouldn’t people gamble only in the positive sum game? Take the US stock market — that certainly seems to be one of them — and manufacture all the suspense you want. Learn about the companies, the CEO. Get your thrill that way and don’t do any other gambling. Why isn’t that just better for everyone?
SILVER: Look, I’m not necessarily a fan of gambling for gambling’s sake. Twice a year, I’ll be in casinos and in Las Vegas a lot. Twice a year, I’ll have a friend who is like, “Let’s just go play blackjack for an hour and have a couple of free drinks,” and things like that. But I like to make bets where I think, at least in principle, I have an edge, or at least can fool myself into thinking I have an edge.
Sometimes, with the sports stuff, you probably know deep down you’re roughly break-even or something like that. You’re doing some smart things, like looking at five different sites and finding a line that’s best, which wipes out some but not all of the house edge. But no, I’m not a huge fan of slot machines, certainly. I think they are very gnarly and addictive in various ways.
COWEN: They limit your sports betting, don’t they?
SILVER: Yes, I’ve been limited by six or seven of the nine New York retail sites.
COWEN: What’s the potential edge they think you might have?
SILVER: It’s just that. If you’re betting $2,000 on the Wizards-Hornets game the moment the line comes out on DraftKings, you’re clearly not a recreational bettor. Just the hallmarks of trying to be a winning player, meaning betting lines early because the line’s early and you don’t have price discovery yet. The early lines are often very beatable. Betting on obscure stuff like “Will this player get X number of rebounds?” or things like that. If you have a knack for — if DraftKings has a line at -3.5 and it’s -4 elsewhere, then it can be called steam chasing, where you bet before a line moves in other places. If you have injury information . . .
It’s a very weird game. One thing I hope people are more aware of is that a lot of the sites — and some are better than others — but they really don’t want winning players. Their advertising has actually changed. It used to be, they would say for Daily Fantasy Sports, which was the predecessor, “Hey, you’re a smart guy” — the ads are very cynical — “You’re a smart guy in a cubicle. Why don’t you go do all your spreadsheet stuff and actually draft this team and make a lot of money, and literally, you’ll be sleeping with supermodels in two months. You win the million-dollar prize from DraftKings.”
And:
COWEN: If we could enforce just an outright ban, what’s the cost-benefit analysis on banning all sports gambling?
SILVER: I’m more of a libertarian than a strict utilitarian, I think.
COWEN: Sure, but what’s the utilitarian price of being a libertarian?
Recommended, interesting and engaging throughout. And yes, we talk about Luka too. Here is my first 2016 CWT with Nate, full of predictions I might add, and here is Nate’s very good new book On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.
The post My excellent Conversation with Nate Silver appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
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