Six minutes of video that will prove you are no better a gambler than a monkey

[cruyff]

I've quit gambling, but came across a video that reminded me so much of this place that I just had to come back and post.

http://www.ted.com/talks/laurie_santos.html

The entire video is about 20 minutes, feel free to watch the whole thing if interested.. but the part you really need to watch is 10:45 to 16:45. Pay attention, after this you'll never think the same way about being in the red again.

[CrimsonQueen]

This doesn't belong in the think tank...but it was an interesting video nonetheless. what's better than gambling monkeys?!

[DukeJohn]

I've quit gambling, but came across a video that reminded me so much of this place that I just had to come back and post.

http://www.ted.com/talks/laurie_santos.html

The entire video is about 20 minutes, feel free to watch the whole thing if interested.. but the part you really need to watch is 10:45 to 16:45. Pay attention, after this you'll never think the same way about being in the red again.

Interesting video on the risk, play it safe or gain vs our perception when you change the thinking to loss at least on a purely gambling model.

[JustinBieber]

God this is so basic, is this woman really trying to pass herself off as an academic? These are just simple EV calculations but obviously a lot of people still take -EV decisions like playing the lottery. Nothing new, interesting or groundbreaking here.

[cruyff]

Justin, the EV calculations weren't being presented as her findings. Admittedly, that's nothing new. But it adds context to the similarity between how we and the monkey's think alike.

[uva3021]

This is essentially John Maynard Smith's evolutionary stable system 101, avoidance of loss is what leads an organism into a certain degree of risk taking, as long as the loss avoidance directly coincides with the well-being of that organism

[brumbies]

FYI, there's a transcript for those who do not wish to watch.

[That Foreign Guy]

LOL, I totally did this last night by turning a failed arb in to a meh reverse middle rather than locking in a loss. It's a classic behavioural economics thing - really interesting that monkeys have the same biases that we do though.

I also like that capucins started monkey prostitution in this experiment.

[thebestthereis]

do they get the same results after the monkeys do a keg stand?

[chaseman]

TED is a great site. I get lost on there sometimes

[secret007]

Interesting video. It shows how people can loss a lot more just to avoid a "smaller" lose.

[wrongturn]

It could be summarized to a few sentences though. Human (so as those monkeys) take choice of certain gain over risky choice of bigger gain, take risky choice to avoid loss over choice of certain less loss.

[Peep]

It could be summarized to a few sentences though. Human (so as those monkeys) take choice of certain gain over risky choice of bigger gain, take risky choice to avoid loss over choice of certain less loss.

Malcom Gladwell talks about this in What the Dog Saw as well. Interesting read.

[u21c3f6]

LOL, I totally did this last night by turning a failed arb in to a meh reverse middle rather than locking in a loss. It's a classic behavioural economics thing ...

Thanks for sharing.

The hardest thing I had to learn when trading stock options was how to take/accept a loss. It is that lesson learned/experience that I apply to my hedge/live sports wagers.

Before I learned the lesson, I would try to get out of a loss which actually only served to put me more at risk and have a negative effect on my overall performance. The trick for me was to recognize that each set-up was only one of many more set-ups to come and that the overall result of those set-ups was positive if I contained the losses. I did not have to profit from each set-up and trying to do so was detrimental to my results.

Joe.

[brumbies]

I realized that Laurie did not show the video of the monkeys for the risk taking part. Until I see the video, I don't believe what she says.

[cruyff]

TED is a great site. I get lost on there sometimes

Me too man. Most of the stuff on there really makes you feel like a more complete person for having watched.

[That Foreign Guy]

The hardest thing I had to learn when trading stock options was how to take/accept a loss. It is that lesson learned/experience that I apply to my hedge/live sports wagers.

Before I learned the lesson, I would try to get out of a loss which actually only served to put me more at risk and have a negative effect on my overall performance. The trick for me was to recognize that each set-up was only one of many more set-ups to come and that the overall result of those set-ups was positive if I contained the losses. I did not have to profit from each set-up and trying to do so was detrimental to my results.

Weirdly I can cut my losses when it comes to financial investing / trading - thinking about it now it's because I force myself to put stops in on any position when I open it so the decision on when to get out is made rationally. However because I haven't committed to that course of action in sports betting I can make excuses when a market moves against me to avoid having to take a certain loss.

There's a guy called Dr Steve Peters (he's a sports psychologist by trade) who is somewhat famous now for his concept of "putting the chimp in the box" - basically it's about taking emotion out of your performance. The other book that is helping me get better at the mental game at the moment is Fooled by Randomness.

[Peep]

Teleb's The Black Swan is good on the high probability of inprobable events. Easily applied to sportsbetting.

[That Foreign Guy]

Yeah, I have that book too - the problem with trying to apply Black Swan ideas to sportsbetting IMO is that it's unusual to get sufficient payouts on massively improbable events (I don't count 5% events as black swans). Another problem is that black swans are very difficult to quantify.

It's still a good book but I think Fooled by Randomness is much better - especially the parts about coinflippers comparing records.

[Peep]

Thanks Foreign Guy. I will pick up a copy of fooled by Randomness.

[durito]

Sporting events don't really have black swans. Maybe something like Monica Seles getting stabbed during a match, but that wouldn't have that big of an effect on the gambling market.

Big underdogs winning once is while is not unusual either. They're usually priced reasonably well.

[donjuan]

Sporting events don't really have black swans. Maybe something like Monica Seles getting stabbed during a match, but that wouldn't have that big of an effect on the gambling market.

Big underdogs winning once is while is not unusual either. They're usually priced reasonably well.

But they can have kurtotic distributions and aren't black swans essentially that?

[DaddyWarBuck$]

Very informative video regardless of how basic it might be. Really made me take a look at some of my irrational decision making.