Mike Florio Uses Favorites Defensively & Other Notes

In football, using math runs the same gamut we see in racing when it comes to making the right play, or constructing the right ticket. 

Case in point, NBC's Mike Florio:

"A coach doesn't have the benefit of thousands of opportunities to do that where the trend favors him."

I hear this argument a lot and it never made sense to me.

The existence of variance in small samples is not an argument for making bad decisions! pic.twitter.com/VHDq71NGRO

— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) December 21, 2020

Leaving aside that thousands of data points is the whole shebang of the matter: If you watch the clip, Florio explains his opinion about how the math can be right, but if you're a coach and you blow the calls in these certain situations (leaning to the 'risky' call and having it not work), you don't have a job anymore. 

His odd diatribe (and this is not uncommon with old school folks) is totally beholden to not logic or math or doing what's correct - but for self preservation. 

This is exactly the argument about playing a chalk defensively in a pick 5. It's all about the preservation of the ticket, even though the math says if we add favorites to every leg, our chances of winning long term is precisely zero. 

We all hate to lose. A coach doesn't want to look like a fool on 4th and three too often to save his job, and we want to get through leg four by adding this horse, and this horse and that horse to "save" our ticket.  

But in the end, if we do that - coach or horseplayer - we're both still losing. 

Notes:

My lunch time listen - Chris has a good guest, Sean, on his Bet with the Best pod. Interested to hear how he's moved his play to Hong Kong racing. 

20 cent Jackpots are slowly dying, with Del Mar joining the $1 pick 6 category this fall. It's one of the weird items where tracks have listened to folks. 

I read an article from a few years ago again recently. It's where Italian racing raised rakes to around 30% from 15%. Of note to me i) It didn't die in year one, it took about 20 years. This is drip, drip, not an avalanche, ii) They finally, after 22 years tried to change taxing to GGR, to stem the tide and make life better for customers and iii) our takeout in NA, when we factor in the teams, etc, is probably approaching 30% and has for a few years. 

Will racing pivot at all here? As we saw this summer when Kentucky Downs raised takeout, not likely any time soon. 

Have a nice Tuesday everyone.