"Pssst, a friend of mine was at Philadelphia Park last month and this shipper was large off a no chance trip, can you go to Belmont and bet me $50?
The horse was 9-1, because the Andy Serling of the day just saw a horse moving up in class with an average running line and Beyer. Belmont Slim, who sells tip sheets outside the south entrance, has the horse nowhere. It's nice to have an edge on a $20 mutuel.
Now, of course, everyone sees that shipper because we can call up a race replay. We know the horse, the trainer's stats, and just about everything else. David Aragona made the horse 3-1 in the morning line and picks him. The live, supposedly sneaky wise guy horse is 2-1. It's just the way the betting market evolved.
With tonight's mid-term election upon us in the US, we see a whole lot of the same thing.
In 2004, for example, the Andy Serling of the day was the "election person" on the TV networks. This person was telling you Florida, between John Kerry and George Bush was "too close to call" an hour into the results, when it in fact wasn't. But with not much to go on, and no professional teams betting elections, the masses bet that opinion. For people who were digging deeper, like our friends betting that long-ago Philly Park shipper, there was gold in those hills. George Bush was 4-5 in Florida, when he should've been 1-9.
This election was quaint, not quant. Rumors of a leaked exit poll being bet by big money on one exchange, Tradesports, but not on another at Betfair. Oh, the good old days, when bookies made the Giants -7.5 in New York, and -6.5 a couple hundred miles down the road.
Time after time, from 2000 onwards to, say, around 2018, we saw quite a bit of that in elections. The rudimentary was bet, the nuanced was not; holes were not plugged by money; efficiency was a concept, not a reality.
Then, with markets attracting more and more money, and election predictions being a thing for the public quants, information and opinion got a whole lot smarter.
In 2022, we're not having to beat the 2004 analyst spewing silly narratives, we have to beat the New York Times needle (which is good), or others benchmarking and modeling with infinitely more precision (and in election betting, importantly less passion or bias).
There are certainly more flies in the ointment today compared to yesterday. Early voting, mail-in voting and how it's counted by state all have to be looked at in a deep way. This allowed us to bet Joe Biden in Pennsylvania at +400 late election night in 2020. Until the rest of the country catches up to places like Florida who built a proper system, these edges will pop up.
But, like that Philly Park shipper who aired and paid $20, it's nothing like 15 or 20 years ago. As betting markets mature, their predictive nature gets better and better. It's that way in horse racing, and it's that way in elections, too. It's kinda that way in all betting markets.
If you're playing tonight, enjoy the evening. Despite the top line numbers and sentiment, I am sure there are edges to be had. Hoping you're on the right side of them.
Have a nice Tuesday everyone.
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