投资新选择：科学化的赌博？！

投资新选择：科学化的赌博？！

2005年，当美国麻省理工学院(MIT)数学系的学生发现了一种彩票的漏洞时，他们成立了一家公司专注“投资”。到那种彩票被叫停时，他们已经累计押注约1700万美元，赚到了350万美元的税前利润。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

mathematician 数学家[mæθəmə'tɪʃn]

roulette 轮盘赌[rʊ'let]

pseudonym 笔名；假名['sjuːdənɪm]

syndicate 企业联合；财团['sɪndɪkət]

blurring the line 模糊的界限

gamble 赌博；孤注一掷['gæmb(ə)l]

lottery 彩票；碰运气的事['lɒt(ə)rɪ]

loosen 放松；松开['luːs(ə)n]

folly 愚蠢；荒唐事['fɒlɪ]

dice 骰子[daɪs]

阅读马上开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间，对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。

如果您读完全文用时为： 那么，您的阅读速度相当于 每分钟阅读的英文单词数

4分14秒 母语为英语者的朗读速度 140

2分3秒 母语为英语的中学生的阅读速度 250

1分53秒 母语为英语的大学生的阅读速度 350

0分0秒 母语为英语的速读高手 1000

Betting and investment both require skill and luck（608words）

By Adam Kucharski

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When I was a PhD student, I would get emails about companies looking to hire mathematicians. Most were engineering firms or banks but occasionally something else appeared. One firm described itself as a “sports research consultancy”. Details were sparse, but it seemed to be searching for people with advanced statistical knowledge — and an interest in the gambling industry.

Scientific betting has traditionally been a secretive affair. In decades past, card counters wore disguises to avoid security, while roulette teams predicted spins with hidden computers. Top sports bettors were known by pseudonyms, if at all. Things are changing. Betting syndicates recruit openly and bring their methods to a wider audience. In the process, they are blurring the line between gambling and investing.

Sometimes it is circumstance that drives people to turn betting into a business. When maths students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered a lottery loophole in 2005, they formed a company — Random Strategies Investments LLC. By the time the lottery was discontinued, they had wagered about $17m and brought in a pre-tax profit of $3.5m.

The rise of sports analytics, combined with better data and computational power, has led to the creation of companies that specialise in betting on sport. Some operate behind closed doors but others promote their mathematical and statistical expertise to outside investors. They pitch sports betting as an alternative asset class, bringing potential for income and diversification, and is paying someone to predict sports results all that different from paying a fund manager to anticipate changes in commodity or stock markets?

The sports betting market would be transformed if the US loosened its gambling laws. At present, federal law largely prohibits sports betting, in effect outlawing online gambling. But billions of dollars are wagered illegally in the US on sport and Adam Silver, commissioner of the National Basketball Association, has argued that such betting should be legalised so it can be regulated and scrutinised. Even if it seems that investment and gambling should be distinct — one driven by skill and the other by luck — the realities and regulations suggest otherwise. Take spread betting. In the UK, betting on financial markets is classed as gambling and is tax exempt. In Australia it counts as an investment and is taxed.

The relationship between flutters and finance also extends to theory. Many ideas central to financial mathematics began with betting. Wagers inspired the concepts of expected value and economic utility, and Karl Pearson, a major figure in developing statistics as a discipline, devised statistical hypothesis testing while studying dice and roulette.

Finance has also inherited many of gambling’s psychological follies. Both industries are susceptible to the “Monte Carlo fallacy”, in which people believe that a series of repeated events, such as several coin tosses coming up heads, means a change “is due”. Another shared hazard is “gambler’s ruin”, which results from people increasing their stake after a win but not lowering it after a loss. Scientific bettors work hard to avoid such fallacies. Indeed, the degree of statistical rigour employed by leading betting syndicates is higher than that of some investment funds, particularly when it comes to “back testing” potential strategies using historical data.

The boundaries between luck and skill, and gambling and investment, are not defined by industry or activity, but rather by the person playing, and who they are playing against. The scientists who cracked blackjack and roulette in the 1960s and 70s eventually moved into finance, tired of the attention from casino security. To them, the divide was superficial. Like the modern teams tackling sports betting, they just saw another market, another set of inefficiencies, and another game to be beaten.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. What kind of people were “sports research consultancy” searching for?

A. with advanced statistical knowledge

B. an interest in the gambling industry

C. mathematicians are the best

D. all of them

2. What did roulette teams use to predict spins in decades past?

A. exposed computers

B. hidden computers

C. fancy dress

D. assumed name

3. Which country treats betting on financial markets as gambling and is tax exempt?

A. UK

B. Australia

C. USA

D. China

4. What define the boundaries between luck and skill, and gambling and investment?

A. industry

B. activity

C. referee

D. the playing person and opponents

[1] 答案 D. all of them

解释：将自己描述为“体育研究咨询公司”的公司当时在找的，是掌握高级统计知识并对博彩行业感兴趣的人。

[2] 答案 B. hidden computers

解释：过去数十年，算牌手往往通过化妆来躲避赌场保安，而轮盘团队则用隐藏起来的计算机来推断轮盘最后的结果。

[3] 答案 A. UK

解释：在英国，押注金融市场被归为赌博，享受免税。而在澳大利亚，这却被算为投资，需要纳税。

[4] 答案 D. the playing person and opponents

解释：运气与技巧、赌博与投资的界限，并不是由行业或行为决定的，而是由行为人以及对手是谁决定的。