Ground Rules

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Hey,

The election drama and pandemic aren’t going anywhere, and I’m trying to keep this newsletter from becoming only about those topics, so I figured I’d get back to writing about my original intention for the newsletter: professional sports are rigged.

In the newsletter that I’m prepping about pro sports and gambling, I realized I was going to spend half of it explaining various terms, so I figured I’d explain them now in a different newsletter to keep it from being too long. I’ll reference it whenever I get around to publishing that one, but for now, check out some of the new concepts that are going to be important in my future newsletter.

• Most Advanced Yet Acceptable (MAYA) is a design concept that states that users want innovation, but only in a way that feels familiar or comfortable. If you try to create a new product that is too far away from what its current competitors look like, it will lead to angst and lower adoption among users. Users are conditioned that what they currently use is normal, so you have to gradually change their mindset rather than make radical changes or it won’t work.
• Game theory is the study of people in various scenarios to determine how they will try to win a particular game. These scenarios can be cooperative or competitive in nature, and are meant to try to determine, predict and anticipate the decision making of opponents. The decisions that are made all lead to payoffs.
• Shoutout to “A Beautiful Mind”, but Nash equilibrium is a specific type of competitive game theory which the player and opponent both balance each other out and have only one decision to make, assuming both are attempting to maximize their payoff and win. The player knows which choice is their best option given all of the choices they and their opponent have made previously, and the opponent is also privy to this same information. If anything changes, then the options may change until Nash equilibrium is reached again.
• Spread betting is a form of gambling which a sportsbook identifies a handicap for one of the teams in a competitive contest. Typically sports contests will have a favorite, the team that everyone expects to win, and an underdog, who is at a sporting disadvantage for one reason or another. Before the game has started a spread is created, which is the handicap or imaginary extra points added to the beginning of the game for the underdog. An example of a spread would be -4, which would be 4 additional points for the underdog’s final point total. In order for the favorite to win, not only do they have to win the game, but they also must eclipse the point total of the underdog plus their imaginary handicap. The underdog can win by simply winning the game, or “winning” the game by losing by a score which would allow them to win if their imaginary points were converted into real points.
• Over/Under (O/U) is a form of gambling which a sportsbook identifies any statistical category, assigns an estimated value for that category, and bettors bet whether it will be over or under that number. To prevent ties, O/U bets often use half numbers, such as 50.5. O/U bets encompass any statistic, so they could be the final score, the score at halftime, how many points a player has, etc. A bet on whether a particular non-statistical event happens is a prop bet, such as whether the backup goalkeeper eats a sandwich while on the bench.
• Shoutout to “The Queen’s Gambit”, but a chess opening is the first few moves of a chess game. The opening is designed to either setup a strong defense, reposition pieces to have them easily available to attack later, or go for the quick kill and try to end the game as soon as possible.
• Conversely, the chess endgame is the last few moves of a chess game. This is how players with more pieces attempt to win the game, or how players with fewer pieces attempt to salvage a draw or win to avoid defeat. The player with better remaining pieces attempts to maintain their advantage and secure victory without surrendering a 28–3 lead.