'You see the Phillies beat the Cubs last night? It was beautiful, had myself
a nice payday.'
'How nice, Mike? And that's a Coors I'm drinking.'
'Made myself about 800 bucks.'
'Jeez! I didn't think you ever risked more than $200 on a game. You gone crazy
or something?'
'Most I could've lost was 180 bucks, Joe.'
'What kind of crazy bookmaker are you dealing with? And why didn't you tell me?
Then again, I gotta admit, I didn't think the Phillies would pull through. Just
couldn't see them winning their third straight, especially after going 2-1 down.
You must have been worried right there.'
'Not in the least. Fact is, I couldn't see the Phillies winning myself. Before
the game, that is.'
'You're not making any sense, Mike. If you thought the Cubs would win, how the
hell did you end up making money? What kind of a bookie pays out on losing
bets?'
'I didn't bet on the Cubs, Joe. Matter of fact, I didn't have a dime riding on
the game. Not until the eight inning, that is. And I didn't call up any damn
bookie. I went to the internet and checked out the prices on tradesports.
Right then, the Cubs To Win contract was trading at 82.'
'What the hell does that mean?'
'It's a bit like the stock market, Joe. You buy and sell, but instead of shares,
it's teams you're trading. You buy and sell what they call contracts. If you
think the team will win, you buy. If you think it'll lose, you sell. Bulls and
bears, Joe. Just like Wall Street. It's a proper exchange - and the members of
the exchange decide the prices. It's taken a while, but finally the sports fan
has a fair market. I ain't going back to any bookie.'
'So the Cubs were trading at 82. I still don't get it.'
'It's easy, Joe. The open market was saying that the Cubs had an 82 per cent
chance of winning the game. If they had actually won, the contract would have
settled at 100. Let's say you buy 100 contracts. That means if the Cubs had won,
you'd have made $180.'
'I think I get it, Mike. So if you had bought the Cubs at 75, you're making a
$250 profit.'
'That's it. The contract settles at 100, you bought it at 75, that means you
make 25 'ticks', as they call it. So if you bought 1000 contracts, you're up
$2,500. And so on.'
'So how did you trade the Cubs/Phillies game, Mike?'
'Well, I figured the Cubs contract was overpriced at 82, so I sold 100
contracts. Must admit, I owe Moises Alou a drink. The ball fell out of his glove
with one out in the eighth. Then Tomas Perez hits a bases-loaded triple for the
Phillies and that Cubs contract sank like a stone. Beautiful.'
'So the Cubs contract settled at zero?'
'That's right, Joe. I'd sold 100 at 82, so I was up 820 bucks. Tradesports took
the money out of one guy's account and put in into mine, minus a $10 commission
fee. That's how they make their money. They don't have an interest in the
outcome of a game, they're just the exchange.'
'Sounds great, Mike. Hey, I think I'll open an account and sell the hell out of
the Yankees on Sunday. Bunch of bums. Have another beer?'
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