The issue with non-metaphorical ‘Id bet’ is that a policy I endorse is ‘only make bets/trades if you are willing to bet with substantial size’. I honestly have to bet like 20K to follow this rule. Ive very rarely seen bets that big in/adjacent-to the EA community. Though I remember hearing about someone betting 500K on scott’s blog.
Why follow that policy, rather than “only make trades if their expected value is greater than the value of what you would otherwise have used your time with?”
I think beating the uhhh ‘market’ is a lot easier than the EMH friends think. But its not exactly easy being a +EV ‘gambler’/speculative-investor. Your counterparites usually aren’t total idiots*. You are better off passing unless you think a bet is both really good and you can get in at least decent money. Its good policy to restrict your attention to only cases which plausibly fulfill both conditions**.
Ad hoc bets also have a very serious adverse selection problem. And in some cases betting people in private when they are being morons makes me feel predatory. I was chatting someone who I know is a lot poorer than me about SBF. He thought there was only a 20% of SBF being arrested by the end of 2023! He offered to bet. I felt predatory taking his money, especially since I knew he had less money than me. I just told him he would look bad shortly. SBF was arrested a few weeks later.
*If they think Trump is currently the secret president they are idiots. But I think those guys ran out of money and gave up.
**Exceptions exist like absurdly +EV intro offers on sportsbetting sites which might be limited to 1500 but pay you like 700dollars in EV for under an hour of work.
The issue with non-metaphorical ‘Id bet’ is that a policy I endorse is ‘only make bets/trades if you are willing to bet with substantial size’. I honestly have to bet like 20K to follow this rule. Ive very rarely seen bets that big in/adjacent-to the EA community. Though I remember hearing about someone betting 500K on scott’s blog.
Why follow that policy, rather than “only make trades if their expected value is greater than the value of what you would otherwise have used your time with?”
I think beating the uhhh ‘market’ is a lot easier than the EMH friends think. But its not exactly easy being a +EV ‘gambler’/speculative-investor. Your counterparites usually aren’t total idiots*. You are better off passing unless you think a bet is both really good and you can get in at least decent money. Its good policy to restrict your attention to only cases which plausibly fulfill both conditions**.
Ad hoc bets also have a very serious adverse selection problem. And in some cases betting people in private when they are being morons makes me feel predatory. I was chatting someone who I know is a lot poorer than me about SBF. He thought there was only a 20% of SBF being arrested by the end of 2023! He offered to bet. I felt predatory taking his money, especially since I knew he had less money than me. I just told him he would look bad shortly. SBF was arrested a few weeks later.
*If they think Trump is currently the secret president they are idiots. But I think those guys ran out of money and gave up.
**Exceptions exist like absurdly +EV intro offers on sportsbetting sites which might be limited to 1500 but pay you like 700dollars in EV for under an hour of work.