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There was a one in 10 million chance that he would find the three winners and he was the only person to predict the correct result.īenter won 10 million dollars and wrote a letter to the organisers telling them that he had the winning ticket, but did not want to cash in on it. His big moment came when he predicted the the winners of a 'Triple Trio'. He did not bet huge figures so he didn't give clues to those who studied his movements nor be vetoed by the racetracks.įinally, the Hong Kong Jockey Club prohibited Benter from investing his money there, just before he delivered the final blow. In 1991, we won about two million dollars and by 1997 it was over 30 million dollars annually. There came a point where his model was practically perfect as he could quite accurately define the probabilities of each horse. Then, Benter moved his headquarters next to the Jockey Club and thus held out until the last few minutes before the races before placing his bets. His team bet with cash at the Hong Kong Jockey Club and then went on to do so over the phone, a privilege that was revoked following his success and the fact that he was able to speed up his play. Over time, he recruited more and more personnel as he required an 'army' of scholars and spies to be able to include all kinds of data into his algorithm. Taking into account all the factors imaginable to calculate the probabilities of a race, he had to thoroughly study each horse and its performance according to the circumstances (up to the temperature at which a horse runs better, for example). He then started a system of probabilities for which he began to use computers and designed an algorithm.
Over the years, he discovered that the world gambling market, was a job and a business, and not a place of recreation.īenter was undoubtedly a pioneer of advanced statistics, which is called 'big data' today, as Billy Beane exploited at a sporting level in baseball and was taken to the cinema through the movie ' Moneyball'.
He continued to study the game and became very successful playing blackjack in Las Vegas and Monte Carlo.īenter was blacklisted and looked for new opportunities in horse racing in Hong Kong, where he moved in 1985. The book was about a mathematical methodology and probability theory to get an edge over the dealer by playing blackjackīenter moved to Las Vegas with his roommate and they found that the method was effective up to a point, because after a time the streak always fell apart. William Benter was born in 1957 in Pittsburg, United States, studied physics in college but his life changed the day he read the book 'Beat the Dealer'.