Predicting the winner of a sporting event is a coin flip. Predicting that the market is going to crash is not, and predicting that it won't crash would not be impressive.

But if he has absolutely no knowledge of the stock market, it is a coinflip for him. There's a 50% chance he'll make the pick that has a p chance of happening. So the chance of him being right is .5(p) + .5(1-p) = .5

That nitpick normally isn't worth a post, but I have to do my part to keep this thread alive with a few bumps here and there. I'll check back in 11 months and if it's not still active then, that'll be my next bump.

But it does him no good to be right that the stock market "doesn't crash". You don't make any money from that. If you tell half the people that it will crash, and half the people that it won't crash, you will almost certainly impress no one. On the other hand, if I tell 64 people that a team will cover the spread, and 64 people that they won't cover the spread, then 64 people will see me make the right prediction. Then the next week I tell 32 of those people that a team will cover, and the other 32 that they won't cover. I repeat this, and at the end of 7 weeks someone will be guaranteed to see me be right 7 times in a row. He thinks I'm a genius and pays me lots of money for my next pick. That scam doesn't work if I predict that the market will crash.

What if the team hits the spread exactly? ;-)

Then they didn't cover the spread. The bet either wins, loses, or pushes depending on the bookmaker. If ties push and I want to avoid that scenario, then I can only predict games with non-integer spreads, like 7.5 points.

Obviously I meant that the bet pushed. And obviously I was just toying with you. And I thought you might say, "well I'll just bet games where pushes aren't possible." WP.

That is what I said. I said I could only predict games with non-integer point spreads. Ties aren't possible in those games. That's what non-integer point spreads are for.

I know that is what you said. That is what I said you said.

No, you said that is what you thought I might say.

Yes, I see how that was confusing. What I was trying to say was that I thought you might say what you did indeed say. My quoted comment was poorly used because it wasn't a quote at all, but my way of paraphrasing what you said.

The way I read it -- you said what he thought you would say but he didn't get around to posting it until after you had said it. He should get the point, unless you're challenging his candor.

now I'm confused about who said what

Who said what He thought he would say, and What said what he thought Who thought He would say.

Well, I am back. There is a t-square in the market on Monday and Tuesday. I bought 1800 shares of QID. On Tuesday morning the planets form a grand cross, which is even more negative. Will it affect the market? The probability is high. The market is a much more difficult place to use astrology because of so many other factors involved that influence the market, such as the prevailing sentiment, the charts of various countries, manipulation. Gambling actually is the best place to use astrology, particularly with slots. It is just your astrology and the machines payback. Even in poker other people at the table have different levels of luck and skill that will affect your luck. So you guys are super-skeptics on this forum? I am very familiar with random distribution. It just does not explain my personal experience with astrology. I understand that you folks have no personal experience with this. So we are talking a different language.

What do you mean the planets form a cross? The planets are lined up near the ecliptic where they always are. The planets follow roughly the same path as the sun across the sky. That's the general plane of the solar system and does not change. The planets can't form a cross in the sky. If you plot their orbits around the sun, they don't form a cross on Tuesday either. Here's Tuesday's alignment. See a sky chart like this one for the alignment along the ecliptic.

Venus and Jupiter appear rather close in the sky now.


We perform mathematical analyses on this forum to evaluate these type of claims. Do you even have a clue how to do that? Make one more claim like this without data or mathematical analysis to support it, and you will be permanently banned.