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Once again, it's time for the FNGT!

If you don't know how this works, . That link will take you to another site to give you some additional information and tell you about some of our off-site features. That's also the site where we will host the weekly guitar threads, should Poal go down.

NOTE: That site is by invitation only. If you want an invite, and you're a regular participant, then just ask Crazy, or myself.

If you do know what's going on, you probably don't need to click that link - but you may want to, to make sure you know of the other features, such as the archive or a separate forum that's invite only.

Remember, we are guests here on Poal. Let's act like it. If you're interested in supporting Poal, then .

**Once again, it's time for the FNGT!** If you don't know how this works, [click this link](https://fngt.gq/index.php?page=intro). That link will take you to another site to give you some additional information and tell you about some of our off-site features. That's also the site where we will host the weekly guitar threads, should Poal go down. **NOTE:** That site is by invitation only. If you want an invite, and you're a regular participant, then just ask Crazy, or myself. If you do know what's going on, you probably don't need to click that link - but you may want to, to make sure you know of the other features, such as the archive or a separate forum that's invite only. Remember, we are guests here on Poal. Let's act like it. If you're interested in supporting Poal, then [you can donate](https://poal.co/donate).

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[–] • 0 pt

I believe they just started to allow OTB in just the last year, I think some of the casinos are also offering sports betting too.

[–] • 0 pt

It's a fun way to spend some time. I learned to read the betting books, so that I could not only see who was racing I could see their performance history. I rapidly learned a few key names in the industry - jockey names. I then learned that they generally came in 1st to 3rd, So, I quickly learned to bet "win place or show" (win regardless if they came in those positions).

I also learned to look for races where just a few horses were racing - sometimes as few as five horses. You do a wheel bet on the top three and you have pretty good odds of winning. If you want, find the WORST one - the one who has the highest odds paying out if they win, and you bet on them to win place or show. 3 out of 5 pay out and there's enough randomization that someone with a poor record will at least come in 3rd.

I kinda miss it. My head office in Winston-Salem was across the parking lot from an OTB and I'd go there to drink my lunch and bet on the ponies. Then, I'd go there after we were closed for the day, but after that I'd go back to work for another few hours, sometimes working until the following morning where I might nap on my couch in my office.

Man, it took a lot of work to get to where I am. I used to put in ungodly hours - sometimes 90ish hours in a week. It was horrible.

[–] • 0 pt

Were you doing computer programming for those 90 hours a week or what?

[–] • 0 pt

A lot of refinement of the algorithms, a lot of data analytics, and stuff like that. I'd spend hours going over the data by hand, trying to tease out better performance/results.

After a while, I didn't really do my own programming. I paid people to do it. They were much better at it than I was. I'd just tell them the metrics and what to modify. They'd continually look for improvements as well. We'd attempt to model anything traffic related and then collect data afte the fact to see how accurate our models were and to improve them. I'd try to tease out the absolute perfect weighting value.

That's what made us so different - we'd collect data after the fact to verify our models and to improve them. That meant pouring over data sets in a way that a computer couldn't always do.