William,
One of the more interesting office sports pools to me (since I didn't spend much time in that environment) was offered by a couple of equity traders I knew for the NCAA tournament. They gave you a slip of 64 teams and you could buy or sell them based on the odds. I forget exactly how they did it, maybe it was $20 to "buy" Duke but only $2 to "buy" Syracuse, and you made money on your longs as they advanced through the schedule. You sold a team short, again more expensive for a top seed like Duke or Michigan and cheap for a bottom seed like Seton Hall, and kept the dough if they got bounced, but you would have to buy to cover in a later round if they kept on winning.
It was very interesting and the two guys who kept the book also kept the spread and made a few thousand bucks for themselves, I think (they did not disclose). My strategy was very successful: I stayed away from the favorites but went long non-Big Media schools outside of major leagues like the ACC or the Pac-10 (such as Gonzaga, or Marquette, or Iowa) and went short schools located within big Media areas (like St. Johns, Georgetown). Invariably, the big Media schools lost earlier and the flyover country schools advanced and my hedge fund made good $$$ for the amount at risk.
Sad day for the space program, but has anyone noticed that the Challenger explosion on liftoff was so much more gut wrenching than the Columbia disaster? Psychologically, to the nation, I mean. There was something subconsciously more gripping about a mission, launching, full of promise and awe, blowing up in the sky, than a mission, completed, heading home and disintegrating while video cameras recorded through tree branches. Still, very very sad.
Kb |
