Nate Silver is a sensible guy, and his analysis of political polls is now pretty much legendary. His 538 blog is now part of the New York Times, and focusing mostly on political polls and trends. But Silver knows a lot about gambling and sports betting in general, having made lots of money in poker tournaments and also having been a Baseball Sabermetrics aficionado.
In a recent Reddit interview (by anyone who logged in and asked him questions) the following wonderful Q&A occurred.
Q. Which do you find more frustrating to analyze, politics or sports?
A. Politics. I don’t think its close. Between the pundits and the partisans, you’re dealing with a lot of very delusional people. And sports provides for much more frequent reality checks. If you were touting how awesome Notre Dame was, for example*, you got very much slapped back into reality last night. In politics, you can go on being delusional for years at a time.
Full disclosure: I said in a NYT video yesterday that I’d bet Notre Dame against the spread.
Yeah, that is pretty much how I feel too. It’s sad when you have to confront the basic limitations of humans operating in a so-called “civilized world.”
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