Book Marries Math & Analytics For Kids
Betting in sports, wherever you stand on it, it’s not going away. For some people it’s the ecstasy they crave to turn Hull vs Stoke on “Super Sunday” into a heart-pounding, pulse racing, sweat inducing frenzy, for others, it’s nonsensical fractions and numbers thrown around by people wasting their time, money and sense.
However, there is also an incredibly vast system requiring knowledge, understanding, and study in this area – now being used in a new book from the United States to help encourage children with a passion for sports to also put the effort into math. #CuttingEdgeSport finds out more…
Sports betting is becoming quite the hot topic in the States, and it constitutes to be a controlled but lucrative revenue stream for clubs in many sports in places where gaming is legal, such as the UK and Australia.
So it was with some interest that a new book has appeared in the States called “Rookie Bookie.” Is it a new way to teach fledgling wagers a way to circumvent the rules in America and put money down on their favorite club? Is it the memoirs of a person who entered the illegal gambling trade and lived to tell about it?
In reality, no. It is actually a kid’s book, written by Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim and economist Tobias Moscowitz…the pair who produced the best-selling book “Scorecasting” two years ago…that helps like kids with a penchant for sports to math, specifically gaming analytics.
The story revolves around a grade school lad named Mitch Sloan, who in trying to make friends in his new school, uses his analytic skills to build out a small betting ring amongst students in a sports-obsessed town. The plan backfires, and young Mitch is left to use his analytic skills in analyzing probability that actually helps the school’s American football team do better on the field. In doing so, he wins back the girl of his dreams and becomes a hero to those hard core sports fans who thought math was just for the textbooks.
It is an easy read for parents anywhere and helps show young people the values of math and economics in a simple to understand format. In short, if you have kids who are interested in the business side of sport, fantasy, gaming, probability, even programming, or if you have an athletics- crazed young person interested in only the game results and how to execute a play with little regard for math, then “Rookie Bookie” is a good one for you.
It shows clearly how far we have come with analytics in the mainstream, and how sport can be successful with a little dose of math skills. Gambling it’s not. It is an educated guess a parent can take in helping a young person merge sports and analytics, maybe for the first time.
