Billy Walters - 60 Minutes Segment

T

TokyoGhetto

This is a clip I came across and I thought it related to trading in general. Would be nice to get a discussion going about trading and gambling.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7253011n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

Billy Walters, the famous Las Vegas gambler, was the subject of a 60 minutes special Sunday night.

Walters has won millions betting on sports teams and other groups in casinos around Las Vegas over the years. He has been the subject of numerous federal investigations due to his high winning percentage. Walters first became the subject of scrutiny in the 1980's as part of the infamous gambling league, the Computer Group. The group fed data into computers to help make predictions of sports outcomes.

The group was turned over to the federal authorities by Vegas bookmakers after making millions. Walters was indicted four times for winning more than luck would allow but the investigations proved he was operating within the law.

Walters says he began betting at pool halls when he was in his early teens. Around the age of 15, he began winning thousands of dollars playing pool.

The 64-year-old Vegas gambler has become so influential in betting that he is able to change the lines on a game based on his own bets.

its 13 mins long. I like the part where he forces the bookies to change their lines on the favorite by betting on underdog, then when the line changes flipping by better more on the favorite.

thoughts?
 
Thanks for this. I like how he bets on the underdog and then last minute bets more on the favorite just to push the bookies around:D Kind of like the whales messing with the order book.
 
Quote from Zr1Trader:

Thanks for this. I like how he bets on the underdog and then last minute bets more on the favorite just to push the bookies around:D Kind of like the whales messing with the order book.
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Yeah I watched that 60mins episode as well. That part brought so many comparisons to trading its not funny. I really enjoyed watching it.

I must admit I pictured him hitting the level2 down a couple price levels flushing the longs out before buying everything that was put on the offer and pushing the "bet" back the other way.

I found the whole segment intriguing. I never bet on sports or enjoy playing blackjack, roulette etc but I can appreciate the similarities that his sports trading has with real stock trading. I'm sure he would probably excel as a trader in any market but good on him for sticking to what works for him.

I found it ironic that he still got fleeced by Enron, Worldcom and a bunch of other scams
 
Quote from PropTraderMTL:

Yeah I watched that 60mins episode as well. That part brought so many comparisons to trading its not funny. I really enjoyed watching it.
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Am I the only one who saw it who thinks that the pieces don't really fit together here? There is something wrong with this picture. Seemed like 90% flim-flam to me.
 
Quote from Kevin Schmit:

Am I the only one who saw it who thinks that the pieces don't really fit together here? There is something wrong with this picture. Seemed like 90% flim-flam to me.
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What do you mean? Like he isn't legit?
 
"Walters can pinpoint his problems from those days, now that he is worth millions of dollars.... He was a gambler, that was definite, but he had no idea how to gamble professionally. He wanted to win every single day. When he lost at the race track or when he lost betting games or when he lost playing poker or when he lost playing golf, he always felt compelled to get down another bet, to retrieve what he had lost that very day."

Just replace the words gamble/bet/game by trade. At some point every discretionary traders face the problem of trading their equity/pnl instead of following their strategy. The same goes for gambling.

He knows it's all about probabilities too.
 
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