The Wisdom of Crowds Finally Wins One

December 23, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston

In several posts over the years, this blog has questioned the “wisdom of crowds,” at least when it comes to sports betting.  (This 2009 post has links to even earlier wisdom-of-crowds posts.) The Wisdom of Crowds says that when it comes to guessing – the weight of an ox, the location of lost ships, the right answer on “Millionaire,” the outcome of football games – you’re better off crowdsourcing than getting the advice of a single expert. None of us is as smart as all of us.*

In sports betting, if you want to know where the crowd is going, follow the money. And you can usually tell where the money is going by watching the point spread.  The spread is like a price – the greater the demand for a side, the more points you have to give up.  When the line moves – if a 4-point favorite becomes a 5-point favorite – chances are that bettors are demanding that side. 

Yesterday, the crowd cleaned up. In three games, so much money came in on the underdogs, that the bookies, in attempt to get action on the other side, made them the favorites.  On Saturday, the Dolphins were 3-point favorites over the Bills. Money kept coming in on the Bills. The books lowered the points Bills bettors were getting. By game time, if you wanted to bet the Bills, you’d have to give one or one-and-a-half points.

A change in the line of even of a half-point in the few hours before game time is often noteworthy; a change of a full point is significant.** A change of four points is extremely rare and indicates important action on the Bills.  As it turned out, the Bills won handily, 19-0. 

That was one of five games with large swings in the point spread. 

(Click on the chart for a larger view.)

The crowd was indeed wise this time around, winning four of the five.  The books took a bath. Yesterday was unusual in the number and magnitude of the changes.  Of course, over the course of the season, you could have made money by watching for crowdsourced line shifts and fading the public wisdom.

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* This line, popular in management circles, is usually attributed to a Japanese proverb.  That sourcing fits with notions about East-West differences. For Americans, with our strong value on individualism and our belief in lone entrepreneurial heroes, “none of us is as smart as all of us” is a dazzling revelation; for the Japanese it’s just common sense.

** Bookmakers are reluctant to move the line at all for fear of being “middled.”  Suppose a  bookie takes a lot of action on Team A getting 3½  points over Team B, so he lowers the line to 2½ to attract money on the favorite. Now bettors respond and bet Team B minus the 2½. If the final score is Team B 17, Team B 14, the point difference falls in the middle of the two lines, and the bookie loses both bets.  (This is an extreme case. More often the change is only a half-point, say from 7 to 7½, and the risk is not a middle but an “edge” – one bet is a push, the other a loss.

Active Sleeping

December 20, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston

Did you sleep well?
Uh, I made a few mistakes.
                     – Steven Wright

We were schmoozing in the hall, my colleagues Sangeeta Parashar, Yong Wang, and I. Sangeeta mentioned a recent CNN Travel blog post about Indianisms, phrases peculiar to India and the Indian diaspora, like “Do the needful.” The author found most of these objectionable – “discuss about” rather than “discuss” or “please revert” instead of “please reply.”

“And ‘sleep is coming’,” said Sangeeta. “We say that to mean ‘I’m going to sleep,” as though sleep is some external force that descends upon the person. “I must go to bed. Sleep is coming.”

Yong said that the Chinese version was similar. Sleep is something that happens to you. “Sleep falls upon me,” or even “Sleep attacks me.”

Two things came immediately to mind: the Steven Wright* joke, but also Robin Williams. No, not the comedian. The sociologist whose take on American culture begins

1. American culture is organized around the attempt at active mastery rather than passive acceptance.  (American Society, 1950)

Our preference for thinking in terms of active mastery extends even to sleep.  It’s something we do, not something we passively accept when it comes, and we can do it well or badly (or with just a few mistakes). From my days as a parent of a toddler, I remember other parents who were training their kids to sleep as they would later train them to use the toilet or kick a soccer ball.  Active mastery.

Of course, sleep as an active verb extends far beyond American culture. The French tell their children “fais dodo” just as they tell them “fais pipi” (preferably not sur le gazon or while they font dodo).  And Western thought  too shares the conception of sleep as an external thing performing actions on individuals. Sleep “knits up the ravelled sleeve of care” (unless Macbeth murders it, which he doth).  Golden slumbers can fill our eyes. We may call for sleep to come and wrap us in its arms. 

I’m not suggesting that these different ways of talking about sleep epitomize huge differences between the Western and non-Western worldviews or the balance between individual agency and context. The Language Loggers (here, for example) have made me cautious about such generalizations.  Still, I cannot completely discount and ignore the differences in imagery.

And so to bed.

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*For those not familiar with Wright, you can find him on YouTube. At a time when most new comedians were doing “observational” comedy, Wright harked back to the old-style of one-liners told in the first person only with a far different perspective and delivery (“I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance”) – Henny Youngman, only absurd and on heavy downers.

Incentivizing Civility

December 19, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston

In the US, merchants offer prizes and discounts to customers for spending more money. Companies give bonuses to employees who bring in the most money (“cutthroat capitalism”).  A café in the south of France offered this.

Ah yes, Bonjour.  We had landed at CDG after a sleepless flight, claimed baggage and cleared customs. It was 8 a.m. or so local time. “Monsieur,” I said to a man on the sidewalk, “where can we get the RER?” (in French).
“Bonjour,” he said clearly.
“The RER,” I repeated, “Where can we find the RER for Paris?”
“Bonjour.”
Finally, I caught on.
“Bonjour,” I said, and repeated the question.

We got to the RER, and somewhere between CDG and Châtelet, someone picked my son’s pocket.

(HT: Polly-Vous Français)

My Favorite Line

December 17, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston

Peter O’Toole died on Saturday.  His line that I most remember is from “My Favorite Year.” (For a plot summary, see the trailer here .)

The film is set in the live-TV era of the 1950s. Peter O’Toole is Alan Swann, an Errol-Flynn-style actor (“I’m not an actor, I’m a movie star”). When he’s not buckling swashes on screen, he is seducing women.  Swann is charming when he’s sober, which is not often.  He has come to New York for a week to appear on a live comedy show (all TV was live), and the film tracks that week.

In this scene, the TV writers are reading in the newspaper about Swann’s exploits of the previous night, which ended up with Swann more or less unclad in Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain.  The writers are looking at the newspaper or at each other and do not notice that Swann has just entered. 

Here is a partial transcript:

Sy [unaware the Swann has just walked in] : Leo, it gets me sick to think we gotta put up with some washed-up jaboni who’s gonna be running around Central Park with his schlong hangin’ out!

Swann: My dear fellow, it’s my schlong and what I choose to do with it is my business.

Sy: So how’s business?

Swann: Never better.

Never better indeed.