AMA 63 - "Trading Bases" with Joe Peta

Joe Peta is the author of, "Trading Bases, A Story About Wall Street, Gambling, and Baseball. He was a fifteen-year all-star Wall Street veteran trader, but decided to give up that lifestyle. Instead, he chose to improve on Moneyball's famed sabermetrics to place bets that would beat Vegas odds on Major League Baseball games. He ended up making a 41% profit over the 2011 season. Peta shares his strategies with Jason. He believes there is a far greater chance of making money betting on baseball than on football or basketball. Peta also talks about the influences Bill James and Nate Silver had on him and his work.

On the financial side, Peta explains Dick Fuld's rough charm as CEO of Lehman Brothers. As a former Lehman employee, he think the U.S. should have rescued Lehman. Now, it looks like Las Vegas should turn to Wall Street for ideas on ways to increase interest, traffic, and, ultimately, bets in their sports books.

Raised in West Chester, PA by a first generation Italian-American father who adopted baseball as a symbol of his love of America, Joe Peta quickly learned the joy of following the sport --- and the pain of being a 1970s-era Phillies fan. By the time he was a teenager, Joe felt certain that his heroes Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, Steve Carlton, et al would one day be his co-workers. While his father instilled a love of baseball in him, sadly, Joe inherited his mother’s throwing arm, so by the time he was in college he turned his career ambitions toward the glamorous and fast-paced life of a Certified Public Accountant. His new heroes were men like Bill James and Warren Buffett and Joe parlayed his love of numbers into an MBA from Stanford University. Even in business school, sports were never far from his mind. At Stanford, Joe penned columns in The Stanford Daily and The Reporter that earned him a following in spite of the constant references to Melrose Place, and his turning down the opportunity to interview campus golfer Tiger Woods to fruitlessly pursue an interview with Olympic Gold Medal winning swimmer Summer Sanders.

In 2011, while recovering from a massive leg injury which curtailed his trading career on Wall Street, Joe began writing Trading Bases, A Story About Wall Street, Gambling, and Baseball.

Joe lives in San Francisco with his wife and two daughters.