A Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code (2018)
The insight about starting from the public odds is so important. It's like running from a polar bear: you don't have to outrun the bear, only your buddy. Not counting the track take, any deviation from the public odds in the correct direction makes you money.<p>(And the public is often reliably biased -- this is why they say sports betting is more about betting on gamblers than on games.)<p>A smaller deviation makes you less money that one time, of course, but it also saves you lots of money if you're wrong, ensuring you live to bet another day.<p>Also in real life: people in aggregate aren't dumb (just a bit biased), so using the public opinion as your prior and then adjusting it Bayesically with private information gets you a more reliable edge than guessing wildly.