Chance: A Guide to Gambling, Love, the Stock Market and Just About Everything Else
Our friends at Avalon Publishing sent us over a copy of Chance: A Guide to Gambling, Love, the Stock Market and Just About Everything Else.
Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. We all aren’t math geeks, but if you are doing any kind of gambling, you need a primer on how probability is computed. There isn’t anything in here that is going to help you put together the system to beat all systems, but if you slept through Statistics 101 while gambling away your student loans, you may uncover a few nuggets that will get you thinking before lay another foolish wager.
Additionally, if you are concerned about jumping into an over-your-head tome on statistics, think again. The author does an excellent job of breaking it down into easy to understand examples.
Monday Night Football: New England at New York Jets
And speaking of Monday Night Football, we’re on a 6-1 run on Monday Night since we started this site. That is free money baby.
New England is in the post-season dance, are banged up, and Belichick said they are treating this like a regular game. Okay, anyone else believe him?
Jets, there is nothing good to say about the Jets this year. Injuries pushed them to the curb and the extremely likable Herm Edwards is on the hot seat. However, this is a team that wants to make a statement and Bollinger is looking more comfortable each game.
New York won’t roll over for anyone and we like that.
Our green is going on the Jets +7, and that my friends, you can bank.
Motor City Bowl
Akron v. Memphis. Flip a freakin’ coin on the side of this game. Memphis is a 4 point favorite, having been bet down from a 6.5. Offenses and defenses are matched up for exploitation which may be better described as a shootout. We’re leaning towards Akron on the side but that money is staying in our pocket. Our green-in-play is on the OVER which we think is a steal at 50.5.
Take the OVER 50.5 if you need some action on this game, but otherwise catch the final Monday Night Football game on ABC.
In Louisiana, Casinos are booming Post-Katrina
Surprise. Gambling keeps going in the New Orleans area.
From NOLA.com:
For those casinos that remained open, especially in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, there’s been gold from those storms. For example, Baton Rouge’s two riverboats saw their take jump more than 50 percent in October and November as the city served as refugee central for the New Orleans area.
Last month, the two open casinos in the New Orleans area — the Boomtown and Treasure Chest riverboats — scored $36.9 million in take, $14.2 million more than in November 2004. Mind you, Harrah’s downtown casino was shuttered, along with another riverboat, likely meaning some money just got shifted around — along with some of the usual New Orleans take winding up in the Baton Rouge casinos.
But in a city where the population is only a fraction of pre-Katrina?
A Treasure Chest official told the Louisiana Gaming Control Board that the onslaught wasn’t due to local residents, long the New Orleans riverboat market’s chief customers. Instead, the casino was hosting construction workers “who are looking for something to do after hours,” said Tom McPherson, an official with Boyd Gaming Corp.
At any rate, customers, on average, departed the Treasure Chest $131 lighter than when they went in — the largest such figure in the state last month, usually reserved for either the Horseshoe Casino in Bossier City or the Delta Downs track casino in Vinton — both of which host a lot of Texans.
Wall Street bets on Web gambling
2006 is starting to look like it may be the year where Internet Gambling and the United States Government may go to battle.
From the NY Times (via CNET):
Internet casinos are outlaw operations in the eyes of the federal government, but they look like solid investments to many of Wall Street’s largest firms.
Blue-chip investment houses like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Fidelity now hold hundreds of millions of dollars in shares of online casinos and betting parlors, which are publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange and headquartered in places like Costa Rica or Gibraltar.
