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.(And the public is often reliably biased -- this is why they say sports betting is more about betting on gamblers than on games.)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.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.