Horseplayer Confidential...

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

I'm not sure I would completely agree with this. The Wizard's sheet is pretty good and he sells his opinion. I would agree that most touts you see out there, obviously John Piesen comes to mind, are only worth paying if you could book their opinions, but there are people getting paid for their opinions that have something to offer. I think a lot of you would be surprised to know how many supposed sharp guys sell their opinions privately.

I do some handicapping shows, I'm doing Sundays at NYRA now, so I fall under the category of getting paid for my opinion....at least sometimes. I do it because I like it, I think it promotes the game in a postive way, and because I get paid. I also win money betting.....but not always enough to pay all my bills.

Right.

Also, there are other motivations in life besides money. Fame, for example. Some people write books with good info, presumably because they enjoy being (somewhat) famous more than the incremental extra money they could make by keeping the info private. I'm guessing (but could be totally wrong) that BTW enjoys the recognition that comes from having his face and opinions out in front of the racing public.

Some years ago Stanford Wong was alerted to a piece of information about a game in Biloxi that had an expected return of more than $1000/hr. With smaller bets, the game could have been milked indefinitely. Instead of maximizing his own win from the game, Wong put the info in his newsletter. Wong was in the business of selling good information, and he always felt his first obligation was to his customers. As a result, the game was swarmed by eager pros, and the game was shut down a day or two later. The estimated win by the players was estimated at $180K, but only a small part of that was Wong's own win. You can read about it on p.5 of this link:

http://www.conjelco.com/IG/IG4.pdf "Professional Sic Bo".

It's a good example of someone selling info that's worthwhile.

--Dunbar