Archive for the ‘Horse racing’ Category

Base Rates: How often do Derby & Preakness winners nail the Triple Crown?

November 5, 2015

Two coinciding events …

In my Strategic Business Analytics course, we’re dealing with “base rates” — the likelihood of something occurring given prior results in relatively similar situations.

And,  a couple of weeks ago, Triple Crown winner American Pharoah won the Breeder’s Cup.

So, I thought it would be a good time to flashback to last May, when American Pharoah was heading into the Belmont as the odds-on favorite to win the Triple Crown … a case study in base rates.

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Originally posted May, 2014

On Saturday, American Pharoah will try to win the Belmont — capping off his Derby & Preakness wins to capture the oft-elusive Triple Crown.

Based on Triple Crown history, what are his chances?

The simple – but very deceiving answer is 35%.

31 horses have won both the Kentucky Derby & the Preakness …

11 of them have won the Belmont and the Triple Crown.

35% … about 1 out of 3.

That’s not bad, right?

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Let’s slice the numbers a little finer …

(more…)

Posted in Cognitive biases, Horse racing, Sports & Athletics | Leave a Comment »

Unsettled Science: AP wins … pulling away.

June 8, 2015

There’s a trite sports adage:

“When these teams get together, you can throw out the record book.”

Same holds for American Pharoah … the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 44 years.

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The betting odds were in AP’s favor … part wishful excitement, part herd mentality, part “uniqueness bias” that stipulated that this horse is really different from past Triple Crown contenders.

Let’s look back at the pre-race punditry …

(more…)

Posted in Horse racing, Settled Science, Sports & Athletics, Triple Crown | Leave a Comment »

American Pharoah: Odds-on favorite, but scientific long-shot …

June 5, 2015

In prior posts we reported how history is against American Pharoah  — How often do Derby & Preakness winners nail the Triple Crown? — and how bettors like long-shots — Biases: The favorite-long shot bias … ».

Today we’ll wrap up Triple Crown Week, excerpting an interesting piece in Wired titled “Science says that American Pharoah won’t win the triple crown”

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Here’s the essence of the scientific argument …

(more…)

Posted in Base Rates, Cognitive biases, Horse racing, Sports & Athletics | Leave a Comment »

How often do Derby & Preakness winners nail the Triple Crown?

June 4, 2015

On Saturday, American Pharoah will try to win the Belmont — capping off his Derby & Preakness wins to capture the oft-elusive Triple Crown.

Based on Triple Crown history, what are his chances?

The simple – but very deceiving answer is 35%.

31 horses have won both the Kentucky Derby & the Preakness …

11 of them have won the Belmont and the Triple Crown.

35% … about 1 out of 3.

That’s not bad, right?

image

Let’s slice the numbers a little finer …

(more…)

Posted in Cognitive biases, Horse racing, Sports & Athletics | Leave a Comment »