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Originally Posted by thaskalos
I have overheard, and also participated in, many conversations at racetracks and OTBs over my many years playing this game.
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I think that is why Thask. You are fishing in the wrong pond.
I remember back in the early 1990's. A friend bought a team to win the Super Bowl at 60-1 or something, and they went on a win streak. He bought it in Vegas and I think they went down to 10-1 or something. He saw he had value, but had no way to sell some.
He was beginning his career as a stock broker. And he thought how great it was to have a market for that, like an Ebay or what have you.
It was similar back in the 1980's when I went to the track. After a leg or two of a pick 4 or pick 7 (we had pick 7s at our track) inevitably the same guys each week would scurry around the grandstand wanting to sell their live tickets and piece them out. There was no way after a leg or two to put a dollar amount on it, other than creating a market and have people bidding.
Often times they would sell a quarter or a half for $400 or something.
Any bet we make, whether it be on gold, silver, oil, or a bet at a track, can have value over time. Anything that has value over time, is ripe for trading like a stock market.
The World Sports Exchange proved it in the mid 90's. They were created by two option traders on the Pacific Stock Exchange.
Later on, Betfair did it to perfection with their market. If you have a really good odds line and buy a horse at 6-1, who you think is going to be 3-1 at close, you have built in tradable value, and if you are good, and there is liquidity, you can end up, by trading having a horse on the board at 3-1, with a 25% chance to win, at 12 or 14-1.
If I ask 100 players at the OTB if they are interested in that - 99 would say no. But we should not care about them in this, because they are already playing horse racing via the pools. We need to look outside those 100 people, to grow the sport. You can not fish for trout in a pond filled with bass.
