prior probability

Pari-mutuel sports betting

Posted on November 22, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

State anti-gambling laws pose an existential threat to the business models of sports betting companies like FanDuel and DraftKings. (See, for example, pages 26-33 of this treatise by law professor Marc Edelman.) But what if you were to bet on athletes like you bet on horses? Betting on horse races is based on the pari-mutuel system of wagering (“pari-mutuel” means “betting among ourselves”), and this system is already legal in 43 states! You may have heard of exotic Trifecta bets, but the most common types of wagers under the pari-mutuel system are Win, Place, and Show bets. Here is how these wagers work (via turfnsport.com): Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Probability, Sports | 2 Comments

Legal liability for research fraud

Posted on November 21, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

That is the title of our latest paper, forthcoming in the Statistical Journal of the IAOS. Props to Steve Koczela and Orlando I. Martinez-Garcia for their comments and suggestions on the paper. In addition, props to my wife Sydjia Robinson and to my colleagues in the Dixon School of Accounting at the University of Central Florida for their friendship and willingness to disagree with me. Here is an excerpt from the introduction to our revised paper (citations omitted; emphasis in the original): Continue reading →

Posted in Cheating, Deception, Law, Science | Leave a comment

If “did not vote” were a candidate, it would have won the 2016 election

Posted on November 19, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Credit: Taillesskangaru, via reddit.

Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Current Affairs | 3 Comments

Paperholm

Posted on November 18, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Check out Paperholm, a beautiful and whimsical paper city created by artist Charles Young, who has been adding a new paper structure to his tiny metropolis each day. More details here, via Colossal. Hat tip: kottke.

Posted in Art, Culture | Leave a comment

What was your first computer?

Posted on November 17, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Anil Dash put this nostalgic question up on Twitter, a question that has been posed many times before. (See here and here, by way of example.) Ours was a Macintosh SE, like the one pictured below, which our parents purchased for us as a graduation gift during our senior year in college. (We needed a computer for law school.)

Our first computer.

Posted in History, Questions Rarely Asked, Web/Tech | 6 Comments

FYI

Posted on November 16, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Hat tip: Helldozer2, via Imgur.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

#shrinkflation

Posted on November 14, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

noun: the process of products shrinking in size or quantity while their prices remain the same.

Hat tip: @JoMadLong, via Twitter.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The truth about lies

Posted on November 12, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

College sports and promissory estoppel

Posted on November 11, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Hey, what’s up? We are attending the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Academy of Legal Studies in Business (#SEALSB2016) in Durham, N.C. this weekend. Our favorite talk so far has been Joseph Long’s presentation on promissory estoppel and the 2015-16 Lousiville basketball season. In summary, Prof Long posed a variant of the following problem: what if a college soccer coach promises a potential star recruit the opportunity to start on the team, and the recruit then joins the team based on this promise? Now, suppose a sex scandal erupts (involving the coach but not the recruit), causing the college to cancel the team’s season. Does the recruit have a legal cause of action against the university under the doctrine of promissory estoppel? According to this common law doctrine, a promise is enforceable by law, even if made without formal consideration, when a promisor (the coach) has made a promise to a promisee (the recruit) who then relies on that promise to his subsequent detriment.

Image credit: Matthew LaMieux

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Legal prophecies

Posted on November 10, 2016 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In previous papers, we have used Bayesian methods to predict litigation outcomes (“A Bayesian Model of the Litigation Game“), and we have also modeled litigation as a game of poker (“The Poker-Litigation Game“). In our latest work (“The Colonel Blotto Litigation Game“), we model litigation as a series of strategic contests or what game theorists call a Colonel Blotto game, i.e. a game of allocative strategic mismatch in which the parties must allocate scarce time resources to a finite number of contests. Although the original version of Colonel Blotto began as a game of military strategy, the strategic aspects of this game have many possible real-world applications, including litigation.