The Science of Winning: A Random Walk Along the Road to Investment Riches (High Stakes: Gambling)

Author: Burton P. Fabricand
Publisher: High Stakes
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^PREFACE

It's no longer a sin to be rich. It's a miracle.

-Message on the bulletin board of the first Christian Church, Galesburg, IL

Winning! There's a subject so close to our hearts and yet so far from our minds. Like the famous Egyptian horseplayer, Shudda Haddim, we find all kinds of explanations to account for winning performance after the fact, but few of us are aware of the deeper probabilities that hold the key to prediction before the fact. Hindsight is easy, but it is foresight that pays off. It has set the human race apart from all otiher species on earth and won for us dominance of a planet. It has built civilization upon civilization, each an elaborate preparation of the physical environment to secure the people's future needs. Now the competition exists among the people memselves, with the bulk of die rewards going to those able to see the future more clearly. Is it possible for us to sharpen our prescience and share more fully in the available wealth?

I have attempted in this book to formulate a general theory of winning. Many applications are touched on, and these will certainly enhance the quality of our foresightedness. But only two, pari-mutuel horse betting and the stock market, are treated in deptti. In this era of ever-increasing taxation and inflation, they are among the few remaining areas where the average person may become rich by using deliberate, disciplined procedures.

For those readers familiar with my previous books, Horse Sense and Beating the Street, the winning systems presented here represent major improvements over die earlier ones in bodi profitability and ease of application. The success so many of you have enjoyed in the past will surely cany over into the future. I trust many otiiers will join you.

This updated edition of my 1979 book, The Science of Winning, contains a new introductory chapter on the present status of my original and highly successful pari-mutuel and stock market systems from die point of view of chaos meory and symmetry. In addition, a brand new pari-mutuel betting system is presented in diree appendices. It differs from the old maimy in its handling of die historical record and in its use of a simple algebraic format that removes die ambiguities of ordinary language. Other than the substitution of the new system, I see nothing in the book diat needs changing. Its insight into tihe efficient-markets ttieory is more relevant dian ever.

For diose readers interested in applications of chaos and symmetry to odier fields, I have appended a reading list to die new introductory chapter.

For my British and Irish readers, an additional appendix D has been added diat shows how to adapt the horse-betting system to wagering with the Tote or the bookmaker.