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- Title
Delusions of Expertise: The High Standard of Proof Needed to Demonstrate Skills at Horserace Handicapping.
- Authors
Browne, Matthew; Rockloff, Matthew; Blaszcynski, Alex; Allcock, Clive; Windross, Allen
- Abstract
Gamblers who participate in skill-oriented games (such as poker and sports-betting) are motivated to win over the long-term, and some monitor their betting outcomes to evaluate their performance and proficiency. In this study of Australian off-track horserace betting, we investigated which levels of sustained returns would be required to establish evidence of skill/expertise. We modelled a random strategy to simulate 'naïve' play, in which equal bets were placed on randomly selected horses using a representative sample of 211 weekend races. Results from a Monte Carlo simulation yielded a distribution of return-on-investments for varying number of bets (N), showing surprising volatility, even after a large number of repeated bets. After adjusting for the house advantage, a gambler would have to place over 10,000 bets in individual races with net returns exceeding 9 % to be reasonably considered an expert punter (α = .05). Moreover, a record of fewer bets would require even greater returns for demonstrating expertise. As such, validated expertise is likely to be rare among race bettors. We argue that the counter-intuitively high threshold for demonstrating expertise by tracking historical performance is likely to exacerbate known cognitive biases in self-evaluation of expertise.
- Subjects
HORSE race betting; GAMBLERS; GAMBLING behavior; DELUSIONS; EXPERTISE; COMPULSIVE gambling
- Publication
Journal of Gambling Studies, 2015, Vol 31, Issue 1, p73
- ISSN
1050-5350
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10899-013-9420-7