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Huge Mechanical Computers Used To Calculate Horse Racing Odds (hackaday.com)
szczys writes: The Pari-Mutuel system revolutionized how wagers were made on horse races starting in the late 1800s. It moved away from gambling against the house, and adjusted the odds based on how many people were placing wagers on a particular horse. Calculating and publicly displaying the changing odds was slow and labor intensive until engineers took a crack at the problem. They created Tote Boards; large mechanical computers which connected to each betting window with levers and cables. Each pull of a lever recalculated the odds which were displayed on large mechanical displays for all to see. Tote Boards were built all over the world and used until digital computing displaced them.
Even with mechanical levers and pulleys, I cannot be denied. Well, the odds are slim anyways.
Does it run analog Linux?
Table-ized A.I.
My wife tried to explain how that all worked to me once; it didn't work.
So, I still make my bets on the ponies based on a combination of the name of the horse and who the house has given the shortest odds of winning. Usually I just bet the two horses who are handicapped to win but don't pay very well.
I can't win any real money, but the house often ends up paying for my betting, which is good enough for me.
The guys who read all the stats and the like? I question if they do any better than chance.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The big Mechanical Sigmas Derby's are dropping like flys.
I herd not to long ago 2 where taken out back and shot.
I herd not to long ago 2 where taken out back and shot.
Sounds like they shot the whole heard.
Bet against the house and you LOSE- this is one of the simplest facts of statistics. Idiots think this means all gambling is a mug's game. No, you gamble when you are betting against the OPINIONS of people, because people are predictable and non-scientific.
Professional gamblers play the horses, and known which forms of races to avoid. They look for mug punters shifting the odds in favourable STATISTICAL directions. No one bet guarantees a return- the betting strategy must be long term. The best races are high-profile events where the public is influenced by the names of the horses. A mathematically, statistically literate gambler can detect if the horses with the best odds of winning are being artificially given worse odds by the betting patterns of the rubes.
For sure, sometimes pro gamblers have spotted flaws in the odds given for other kinds of events (like the famous 'hole-in-one' 'bug' that allowed some people to make a fortune from the bookies naive misunderstanding of the odds of such an event at a tournament), but gambling on the horses is the only common gambling that allows the smart gambler to consistently win across the year on maths alone.
Mechanical doesn't mean they're not digital, it just means they're not electronic. Without doing a lot of research into these specific machines, it would be a whole lot easier to build them using a digital calculations rather than analog.
I realize this article is about computing odds 'officially', but the book "The Valachi Papers" about mafia member Joe Valachi (Valachi didn't use the word 'mafia' himself; about that name he said that's "what you people call us."), has some insider scoop where Valachi talks about horse racing. He even owned some race horses himself. (Something most of his colleagues didn't BTW. He got into it by chance because some guy overheard his wife talking about a horse at a race track, and told her that, against conventional wisdom, she was making a good bet.) He explains that the way to know how to bet is to be cozy with trainers, jockeys, and so on. They know how a horse is feeling on the day of the race. There's more in there also, like how hard it is to 'fix' a race.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
What belongs to the Derby?
Flies.
A herd is a bunch of animals.
"too"
I sea what you did their. Or maybe I herd it?
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“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Don't bother. There's no more information than there is in the summary. There aren't even any photos or diagrams of one of these machines.
My grandpa taught me how to bet the harness races at Sportsman's Park. He had this arcane formula that involved eliminating the horses in the outside three stalls, the horses' last results and the names of the drivers. I'm not going to share the details here, because this is paramutual betting and I need you all to lose.
But let me tell you, grandpa always had dough. He used to say betting the harness races was for supplementing his Social Security and railroad pension. When he died, my mom gave me all his clothes, because grandpa was a flash dresser and we were about the same size. Of course, the styles were about 30 years out of date, but that worked for me thanks to nostalgia.
Anyway, the upshot is that one day, a few months after he died, I decided to try on one of his suits. I found a big roll of bills in the inside jacket pocket. Maybe 8-900 bucks. Then I looked in one of his cashmere overcoats: another grand or so. By the time all was said and done, I must have found $30,000 salted away in grandpa's clothes. Now this is a guy who was a Sicilian immigrant who went through the third grade and came to this country at age 12 to be a shepherd in Colorado. He worked for the Rock Island Railroad for like 45 years, but all that went into the house and the family. Everybody thought gramps was placing $2 bets at the track, but it turns out old boy was rolling deep.
I miss my grandpa and how he'd take me out to the racetrack when I was a kid and explain everything to me as if I understood it..
You are welcome on my lawn.
...the "Tote" was a well-regulated state corporation required to channel a certain % of profit back into sports, giving a respectable method for people to bet in the UK until 5 years ago, when it was sold off to Betfred.
And before you cry "socialists!", this was one of the many schemes set up in the public interest by Winston Churchill (one of my favourite things he implemented were labour exchanges - ah, the value of not sticking to ideological bullshit like neoliberalism! these have degenerated into exploitative "jobcentres" today which don't really help people to get a job at all...).
They already did it. Last WWII fort I went to, they still had the trajectory calculator in place. Though it was much more slide-rule like, than mechanical computer like.
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Have a look at this, there are even pictures http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/australia_innovates/?%20behaviour=view_article&Section_id=1010&article_id=10010
From what I heard, when the Iowa-class battleships were reactivated in the 80s, they had to find old veterans who knew how to use the fire control computers.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I've not been on a battleship, but the calculator I saw was quite simple. It looked like it was designed to be used by a drafted teen with no training. You use the markings on the window for a range estimate, then put it in for an angle. It didn't allow for any wind or other such things. I'd expect that'd be a miss, and then a re-aim. So direct line of sight only, and correction for wind or such in the calculator. But simple, and easy. The US battleship ones I'd expect to assume a greater level of competency and training.
Learn to love Alaska
2013 is the centennial of the Sir George JULIUS - internationally recognised as the world's FIRST Multi-User, Real-Time, Computer even though it was electro-mechanical. [He was also the first CSIRO Chairman] A working demonstration version is being built.
http://acms.org.au/JuliusTOTE
ACMS holds a "terminal"
Sydney(Australia)'s Powerhouse Museum has a mobile tote fitted into a bus.
The simple rule of thumb for betting on the horses, you bet on the best jockey, the best jockey has the inside knowledge about the form of all the horses and will only ride on the horse with the best chance of winning. Also the trainers will only put their best horses forward to the best jockey as they also want to take a win, so the best jockey will always have things stacked in their favour.
I wouldn't call anything a computer unless it is programmable with any kind of Turing-complete instruction set.
Otherwise it is a calculator.
Each pull of a lever recalculated the odds which were displayed on large mechanical displays for all to see
Today we call that 2-way binding.
Last WWII fort I went to, they still had the trajectory calculator in place.
Where was this at?
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Before WWII, navies put a lot of effort into fire control, including over-the-horizon fire. The calculator you saw might be from WWI or shortly thereafter. The Iowa-class battleships were capable of getting a first-round straddle* on a moving target at about 35K yards.
*Battleship guns were normally adjusted to make a pattern of shells, to optimize the chance of getting at least one hit, at the expense of putting the largest number of shells possible into the enemy. All the fire control can do is to put that pattern on the target. Particularly at range, whether the pattern hits is somewhat a matter of chance. Therefore, a straddle (shells falling on both sides of the target) is a measure of success. The visual indication of a straddle is that some but not all of the shell splashes have their bases cut off because they're on the far side of the shell; before radar there was no way of telling comparative ranges at those distances. Also, a shell that hit its target would probably not be visible to the firing ship.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The structure was built for WWI, but didn't see action in WWI or WWII, and I saw it in a disused and somewhat preserved, but not restored post-WWII configuration.
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A non-US base built for WWI and "used" in WWII (used as in staffed and important, but never fired a shot). I prefer to not say, as I've had some people try to dox me on here before. And hints as to where I am or have been encourage them.
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