Allin Summit 2022 - May 16 2022 - Nate Silver - What makes Gamblers tick?

May 16 2022

Nate Silver - What makes gamblers tick?

• He is working on a book with this theme
• The best gamblers:
  • Need to understand probability
  • Complex mathematics combined with intuition
  • Are highly competitive, not average
  • Care about small edges, win 54-57% of sports bets
  • Are contrarians - there’s a fine line between being ahead of the curve and being permanently contrarian
  • Take shots
  • Work well with incomplete information
  • Focus on the process, not results
  • Are opportunistic
    • Good players fold 70% of the time
  • Thinking, focusing and concentrating hard on taxing on the brain and body - Magnus Carlsen loses 5 lbs in a chess game
  • Apply Practiced Intuition - read “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman
  • Are structured thinkers
  • Don’t care that much about money - move between states: {super rich, rich, broke}

Q and A

• In politics, people just look for their priors
• Need good BS detectors
• Get boundary policed a lot
• Challenger party is more motivated to turn out
• You always want to play counter-attack in politics