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Comment by joosters | Hacker News Reader

Bill Benter did the impossible: He wrote an algorithm that couldn’t lose at the track. Close to a billion dollars later, he tells his story for the first time.

No, he told this story decades ago, and published papers detailing his algorithms, e.g.

Benter, W. (1994).“Computer Based Horserace Handicapping and Wagering Systems: A Report.” In L. Hausch and Ziemba (eds.), Efficiency of Racetrack Betting Markets. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 183–198.

Benter, W. (2003). “Advances in the Mathematical Modeling of Horse Race Outcomes.” 12th International Conference on Gambling and Risk-Taking, Vancouver, BC, Canada (May 2003)

There are videos of him (just search youtube) presenting at conferences detailing some of his algorithms too... there are no secrets being revealed for the first time here!

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>there are no secrets being revealed for the first time here

I think this is the first time Benter has admitted winning the Triple Trio. The only mention of it I could find just said it was suspected he had won the unclaimed prize.

I come to HN for comments like this. Thanks for the info!

To be fair, I just got to the end of the article and discovered that it mentioned this paper too...

One aspect that isn't mentioned, is that Benter (and Zeljko Ranogajec, mentioned at the very end) got a large edge over over punters by negotiating large discounts/rebates from the betting pools by providing such large volumes. It's easier to make a profit when you are getting (say) 10% back on your losing bets...

Play the game with the rules you can make, not the rules you think exist...

Disclosure: paraphrasing Sirlin http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

Pretty big thing to not mention TBH, given the odds are so slim once you take the track's take into account.

I wanted to read those papers, but I can't find anything about the second one beyond the fact that it exists.

There's a copy of the first paper available at:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/166556276/Benter

If you're interested in those two papers, the earlier paper 'Searching for Positive Returns at the Track: A Multinomial Logit Model for Handicapping Horse Races' (Bolton, Ruth N. and Randall G. Chapman) is also worth reading:

http://www.ruthnbolton.com/Publications/Track.pdf

I've found that many conference "papers" were never actually written as papers at all, they were just oral presentations at a conference. Someone who was there cites it in a paper of their own, and then a bunch of other people copy the citation without actually having seen/read the "paper".

I found the second paper behind a paywall: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299438463_Advances_...

Edit: there's a 2008 version or reprint of the first paper: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/978981281919...

> I found the second paper behind a paywall: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299438463_Advances_....

I don't believe that's a paywall, just Researchgate being scummy like usual and using a citation while pretending to have a copy - all that would do is ping Benter to ask for a copy. I can't find any evidence that that conference presentation was published or that the conference proceedings as a whole were ever published.

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