Imagine, for a moment, that the State of Utah was not a state. It’s nothing against the people of Utah, mind you. Utah still exists, it’s still a part of the United States, and if you’re born there you’re still an American citizen. It’s just not a state. We’ll call it a territory or a …
Inspired by the “Bitcoin as Clean Energy Stimulus” section of Ryan Selkis’s Crypto Theses for 2022, I’ve spend a bit more time recently thinking about Bitcoin and energy usage. The view by a lot of non-crypto enthusiasts is that Bitcoin is terrible for the environment. The typical argument is that Bitcoin itself does not add …
Seven and a half is a card game that’s something like 2/3rds blackjack and 1/3 poker. It’s known as setto e mezzo in Italy or Siete y Media in Spain (that literally just means 7.5 in Italian/Spanish, but the point being it is popular in these other countries) and is played with a deck of 40 cards (standard deck of cards, minus the 8s, 9s, and 10s). This is an attempt to solve the game via a Monte Carlo simulation in Python.
Note: This was originally published in Adam Keesling’s Napkin Math newsletter, which you can find here. Welp, it’s a nail-biter. Yet again, despite the predictions of polls and pundits, there was no blue wave and no clear landslide victory last night, and there’s not likely to be a clear winner for days. Why are we …
Can Political Betting Markets Predict Election Outcomes? Read More »
Or, some thoughts on the theory of bid-ask spreads in gambling markets One of the things I’ve found interesting to think about for a few months now is how spreads and odds get set by bookmakers. I’ve written a bit about this before, in terms of how the line gets set, but also think it’s …
I’ve been thinking a lot about a twitter thread from Patrick McKenzie back in late January about the potential for SaaS companies turning to securitization as a source of financing. On the one hand, I think he’s definitely right, especially as we see a larger system of VC-alternative investment models pop up; others have also …
A little while ago I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast about the economics and behavioral incentives of tipping. Tipping is pretty ubiquitous in American restaurants, with somewhere around 18-20% generally expected. But the entire ecosystem around tipping is a bit screwy. Because they are expected to receive compensation through tips, servers in most states …
If you’re a consumer facing company, you care a lot about what your consumers think of you. One of the pretty definitive pieces of advice for small companies is Paul Graham’s axiom to do things that don’t scale. Small companies actually have the *luxury* of being able to talk to all of their customers, to …
For any number of reasons, I spend a decent amount of time thinking about how lines are set at a sportsbook. I think there are a couple common misconceptions about how a point spread is created. An analogy to the stock market is useful. When talking about how the stock market works, John Maynard Keynes …