I'm in the 10-10-20 lc game and discussing sports betting. I had a friendly bet with another player where I had laid 185:100 on the yankees to win the series. I offered to let him out for 70 after looking up the odds on wsex. If you pick the middle of the lines the Yankees are -675, or almost 7:1 favorites. He told me there was no way he'd settle since he was getting 2:1.

Ok, that sounds like an opportunity. I offered him a further 3:1 bet on the series outcome. He immediately accepted... as did three other people. Uh, ok. Too bad I don't have an account on one of the betting sites -- I could bet the middle. Or icoukd just enjoy having such a good bet. One odd thing is that this bet feels huge to me despite having several times that on the table -- but this an order of magnitude more than I've bet on sports before.

In the meantime I doubled up in the first three hands dealt at the table, so I can lose the 1200 and still be ahead. :)

Iphone, meet cement floor of the Lucky Chances parking garage.



On the upside, I did win enough money this week to pay for a new one. Also, interestingly, one of the other people in the game bought it from me after I replace it. He gave me $100, and I agreed to give him the phone next week. I think he's going to refurb it and export it, but frankly I'm happy to get anything at all for it.

This is Sam, for those of you who know him. I also made the following two bets with him: I bet $100, even odds, on the Phillies to win the NLCS, and bet $150 to win $100 on the Yankees to win the ALCS. Looking at the odds online, the first bet is bad and the second bet is good. I don't actually know how to back out the house edge, though, so I don't see an easy way to calculate the EV on these bets assuming the Vegas lines are right. This is why I'm not a sports bettor generally.

So according to WSEX, the Yankees are -196 and the Angels are +156, so Sam is getting nearly the deal he could get with them, but I'm getting a much better deal on the Yankees. Similarly, the Dodgers are -122, but the Phillies are even, so I'm getting the same deal as online but he's getting the better one there. Anyone want to tell me who got the better end of this trade by how much? I think it's me but I'm not really sure.

On May 11, 2006, I had the following conversation in IRC (I'm target):

16:32 < mjlewis> ok, what's the line on the president's approval rating going under 25%?
16:32 < mjlewis> or under 50% with republicans?
16:32 < target_> 25%  no way.
16:33 < target_> I put 25% at 400:1 against.
...
16:39 < hubt> what's the time limit on 400:1
16:40 < target_> while he's still in office.
16:40 < paladinMO> the gambooler awakens
16:40 < paladinMO> can i bet $1?
16:40 < target_> sure
16:40 < paladinMO> $10?
16:40 < target_> sure
16:41 < paladinMO> hm.  maybe i should bet $25, and if i win, i enter the wsop.
16:41  * target_ is getting a little nervous about the amount of money he may be putting on the table
16:41 < paladinMO> so do you really want to lay me 400:1 on his popularity dropping below 25%?
16:41 < paladinMO> on a $10 bet?
16:42 < target_> I think I'm going to back out just because I'm unexcited about the downside variance
16:42 < target_> but I'll do it for $1
16:42 < paladinMO> i figured.
16:42 < paladinMO> ok.  done.

And I, even though I was just arguing about a line and not offering it, accepted. My ego got in the way.

Now, even if I thought that the line was right -- and it wasn't necessarily well-thought-out, so I really didn't have much confidence in it -- I shouldn't have taken it. If I'm wrong in my favor, I make a few pennies. If I'm wrong in his favor, I can be out tens of dollars of EV or more. Not to mention, he'd take a worse bet than that, so I had no need to lay those odds.

On the upside, it really was very unlikely. There is a core of die-hard supporters who will hear no wrong of the man (just as there will be for Obama). In american politics, it is unbelievably hard to have an approval rating below 25% -- Nixon managed it, with 23%, but he's the only one. The war would have to go badly, and on top of that we'd need to have some sort of domestic catastrophe, like a bad recession or a market crash, or both... and then we did.

Here's what Bush's approval/disapproval graph looks like in the last few years:



My bet was really not looking so good there.

Jason graciously let me choose the poll, and I chose the Fox News poll. Actually, that was another mistake. While Fox News as an organization is undeniably right-leaning, their polling data is not. It's middle-of-the-road, and in the recent election, had no serious house effect. However, they were noisy, which is really awful, since a couple points in the wrong direction and I'd be done for. I should have chosen NBC-WSJ, who were pretty consistent and had a 2-3 point republican lean, and who would not have been quite so transparent a choice. On the other hand, I hadn't read 538.com's analysis of house lean by then, since Nate hadn't written it, so I'm not sure how I could have known. For the record, NBC-WSJ never had Bush go below 29. CBS, in contrast, had him as low as 22.

Fox News just released their final poll on Bush's popularity:

1. Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as
president?
               *** Bush Job Ratings Summary ***
                           Approve Disapprove (Don’t know)
Most recent (13-14 Jan 09) 34%     58          8
Highest (14-15 Nov 01)     88%     7           5
Lowest (8-9 Oct 08)        25%     69          5

Job Rating Averages:
First Term        61% 29
Second Term       37% 55
Entire Presidency 51% 40

So the lowest he went was 25%... and not below, so I win the bet. Phew.

I should frame that dollar, or something.