[washingtonismoney]

... (both because I'm sort of skeptical that any market is actually efficient in the real world, except perhaps the largest betting markets, maybe these types of things are big enough but I'm not sure that college game spreads are big enough). ...

Right. In practice, of course, markets aren't necessarily perfectly efficient. But certain markets are. For example, the number of people who should be doing anything other than index funds for their retirement investing is super, super small. The stock market is pretty efficient. My suspicion is that the big sports gambling markets are too. But again, I haven't seen good empirical data. And I'm surprised that no one's done a good, comprehensive study on this -- because it seems both fascinating, and relatively easy (by academic study standards.)

[washingtonismoney]

... (both because I'm sort of skeptical that any market is actually efficient in the real world, except perhaps the largest betting markets, maybe these types of things are big enough but I'm not sure that college game spreads are big enough). ...

Right. In practice, of course, markets aren't necessarily perfectly efficient. But certain markets are. For example, the number of people who should be doing anything other than index funds for their retirement investing is super, super small. The stock market is pretty efficient. My suspicion is that the big sports gambling markets are too. But again, I haven't seen good empirical data. And I'm surprised that no one's done a good, comprehensive study on this -- because it seems both fascinating, and relatively easy (by academic study standards.)

[stupac2]

Right. In practice, of course, markets aren't necessarily perfectly efficient. But certain markets are. For example, the number of people who should be doing anything other than index funds for their retirement investing is super, super small. The stock market is pretty efficient.

I don't really get the connection there. Even if the stock market weren't generally pretty efficient, wouldn't most people want to be in index funds? After all, the idea that some people can sometimes beat the market doesn't imply that everyone can all the time.

My suspicion is that the big sports gambling markets are too. But again, I haven't seen good empirical data. And I'm surprised that no one's done a good, comprehensive study on this -- because it seems both fascinating, and relatively easy (by academic study standards.)

There has to be a reason for this, there are too many researchers out there for no one to have thought of doing this. Maybe it's been done but the results aren't well known?

[stupac2]

Right. In practice, of course, markets aren't necessarily perfectly efficient. But certain markets are. For example, the number of people who should be doing anything other than index funds for their retirement investing is super, super small. The stock market is pretty efficient.

I don't really get the connection there. Even if the stock market weren't generally pretty efficient, wouldn't most people want to be in index funds? After all, the idea that some people can sometimes beat the market doesn't imply that everyone can all the time.

My suspicion is that the big sports gambling markets are too. But again, I haven't seen good empirical data. And I'm surprised that no one's done a good, comprehensive study on this -- because it seems both fascinating, and relatively easy (by academic study standards.)

There has to be a reason for this, there are too many researchers out there for no one to have thought of doing this. Maybe it's been done but the results aren't well known?

[Papa John]

Courtesy of the Westgate SuperBook via ESPN's Kyle Bonagura:

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/...onal-title

Stanford has the fourth-best odds among Pac-12 teams to win the national championship (40-1) behind favorite U-S-C (15-1), Oregon (20-1) and UCLA (20-1). Of course, as Kyle Bonagura points out--and folks tend to forget--these odds are created so that people will spend their hard-earned money on sports bets. The Vegas odds should not be viewed as "honest" predictions of how likely it is that these teams will win the NC.

I don't really have much to add, except that Oregon is not winning the NC, because Stanford is taking the Pac-12 North in 2015.

I'm sorry if it sounds like bragging, but I did call it 204 days ago.

[Papa John]

Courtesy of the Westgate SuperBook via ESPN's Kyle Bonagura:

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/...onal-title

Stanford has the fourth-best odds among Pac-12 teams to win the national championship (40-1) behind favorite U-S-C (15-1), Oregon (20-1) and UCLA (20-1). Of course, as Kyle Bonagura points out--and folks tend to forget--these odds are created so that people will spend their hard-earned money on sports bets. The Vegas odds should not be viewed as "honest" predictions of how likely it is that these teams will win the NC.

I don't really have much to add, except that Oregon is not winning the NC, because Stanford is taking the Pac-12 North in 2015.

I'm sorry if it sounds like bragging, but I did call it 204 days ago.