辩论:投资与赌博有界限吗

When I was a PhD student, I would get emails about companies looking to hire mathematicians. Most were engineering firms or banks but occasionally something else appeared. One firm described itself as a “sports research consultancy”. Details were sparse, but it seemed to be searching for people with advanced statistical knowledge — and an interest in the gambling industry.

博士时，我时常会收到企业招聘数学家的邮件。多数都是工程公司或银行，但是偶尔也会出现特别一点的。有一家公司将自己描述为“体育研究咨询公司”。具体情况说得非常简略，但是当时它在找的，似乎是掌握高级统计知识并对博彩行业感兴趣的人。

Scientific betting has traditionally been a secretive affair. In decades past, card counters wore disguises to avoid security, while roulette teams predicted spins with hidden computers. Top sports bettors were known by pseudonyms, if at all. Things are changing. Betting syndicates recruit openly and bring their methods to a wider audience. In the process, they are blurring the line between gambling and investing.

科学化的赌博以往一直是件偷偷摸摸的事。过去数十年，算牌手往往通过化妆来躲避赌场保安，而轮盘团队则用隐藏起来的计算机来推断轮盘最后的结果。过去，体育博彩的赌神使用的都是化名——如果他们有名号的话。如今的情况正在发生变化。专业赌博集团公开进行招聘，让更多人知道他们的押注方法。在该过程中，他们模糊了赌博和投资之间的界线。

Sometimes it is circumstance that drives people to turn betting into a business. When maths students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered a lottery loophole in 2005, they formed a company — Random Strategies Investments LLC. By the time the lottery was discontinued, they had wagered about $17m and brought in a pre-tax profit of $3.5m.

有时，是机会促使人们把赌博转变为一门业务。2005年，当美国麻省理工学院(MIT)数学系的学生发现了一种彩票的漏洞时，他们成立了一家公司——随机策略投资有限责任公司(Random Strategies Investments LLC)。到那种彩票被叫停时，他们已经累计押注约1700万美元，赚到了350万美元的税前利润。

The rise of sports analytics, combined with better data and computational power, has led to the creation of companies that specialise in betting on sport. Some operate behind closed doors but others promote their mathematical and statistical expertise to outside investors. They pitch sports betting as an alternative asset class, bringing potential for income and diversification, and is paying someone to predict sports results all that different from paying a fund manager to anticipate changes in commodity or stock markets?

体育分析的崛起，再加上数据和运算能力的提高，使得专门赌体育比赛结果的公司应运而生。一些公司秘密经营，其他公司则向外部投资者推销自己在数学和统计方面的专业技能。它们宣称对体育比赛结果的押注是一种另类资产类别，有可能带来收益并使投资多元化。聘请专人预测体育比赛结果与聘请基金经理预测大宗商品或股市走向，真的有那么不同吗？

The sports betting market would be transformed if the US loosened its gambling laws. [bit of explanation here about what current situation is in US]At present, federal law largely prohibits sports betting, in effect outlawing online gambling. But billions of dollars are wagered illegally in the US on sport and Adam Silver, commissioner of the National Basketball Association, has argued that such betting should be legalised so it can be regulated and scrutinised. Even if it seems that investment and gambling should be distinct — one driven by skill and the other by luck — the realities and regulations suggest otherwise. Take spread betting. In the UK, betting on financial markets is classed as gambling and is tax exempt. In Australia it counts as an investment and is taxed.

如果美国放松与赌博相关的法律，体育博彩市场将彻底改变。目前，联邦法律基本上禁止体育博彩，实际上将在线赌博认定为非法。但是，美国非法进行体育博彩的资金达数十亿美元。美国国家篮球协会(NBA)总裁萧华(Adam Silver)认为，应该将这类博彩合法化，以便监管和审查。尽管看上去投资和赌博应该是不一样的（前者靠技术、后者靠运气），但是从实际情况和监管法规来看，情况恰好相反。以点差交易(spread betting)为例。在英国，押注金融市场被归为赌博，享受免税。而在澳大利亚，这却被算为投资，需要纳税。

The relationship between flutters and finance also extends to theory. Many ideas central to financial mathematics began with betting. Wagers inspired the concepts of expected value and economic utility, and Karl Pearson, a major figure in developing statistics as a discipline, devised statistical hypothesis testing while studying dice and roulette.

赌博和金融之间的关系也扩展到理论中。金融数学的许多核心观点都源自赌博。赌博启发了期望值和经济效用的概念。将统计学发展成为一门学科的泰斗级人物卡尔•皮尔逊(Karl Pearson)，正是在研究掷骰子和轮盘时设计出了统计假设检验。

Finance has also inherited many of gambling’s psychological follies. Both industries are susceptible to the “Monte Carlo fallacy”, in which people believe that a series of repeated events, such as several coin tosses coming up heads, means a change “is due”. Another shared hazard is “gambler’s ruin”, which results from people increasing their stake after a win but not lowering it after a loss. Scientific bettors work hard to avoid such fallacies. Indeed, the degree of statistical rigour employed by leading betting syndicates is higher than that of some investment funds, particularly when it comes to “back testing” potential strategies using historical data.

金融也传承了赌博中的很多愚蠢心理。两个行业都容易受到“蒙特卡罗谬误”(Monte Carlo Fallacy)的影响，即人们认为某件事发生了很多次，比如投掷硬币时多次出现人头面朝上，就意味着结果“应该会”改变了。两者共同面临的另一种危险是“赌徒破产”(gambler’s ruin)现象。这是因为人们在赌赢之后会加大赌注，但在赌输后却不会减少赌注。使用科学方法的赌徒会尽力避免犯这些错误。的确，领先的博彩集团比某些投资基金更严格遵循统计规律，特别是在利用历史数据对潜在押注策略进行“回溯检验”方面。

The boundaries between luck and skill, and gambling and investment, are not defined by industry or activity, but rather by the person playing, and who they are playing against. The scientists who cracked blackjack and roulette in the 1960s and 70s eventually moved into finance, tired of the attention from casino security. To them, the divide was superficial. Like the modern teams tackling sports betting, they just saw another market, another set of inefficiencies, and another game to be beaten. 

运气与技巧、赌博与投资的界限，并不是由行业或行为决定的，而是由行为人以及对手是谁决定的。上世纪六七十年代破解了“二十一点”和轮盘的科学家，最终厌倦了赌场保安的“特殊关照”而进入了金融业。对他们来说，这种界限只是表面上的。就像如今研究体育博彩的团队一样，他们只是看到了另一个市场、另一套不严密的规则、以及另一个可以战胜的游戏而已。