How This Man Profited $1 Billion Betting on Hong Kong Horse Races
Economics Explained
00:00
The Gambler's Ruin
Benta taught himself advanced statistics and learnt to write software on early PCs with green and black screens. He hired two women to key in the results to a database so he could have more time to spend studying regressions and developing the code. Between races, Benta struggled to make his algorithm stay ahead of a statistical phenomenon known as Gambler's Ruin. The gambling population of Hong Kong was the player with unlimited money - making him work twice as hard just to break even. By the end of their first season in Hong Kong, Woods and Benta had lost $120,000 of their original $150,000 stake.
Transcript
Play full episode
