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Comment by ltbarcly3

Kelly is not optimal if you can't estimate the probabilities with great precision, which you can't outside of contrived examples or casinos. In casinos you have negative expected value on every bet, and Kelly tells you to not play at all. Contrived examples don't matter.

You aren't addressing what I said, you are cherry picking things you find easy to rebut. You are right that I messed up and that you can't lose all your money with two 50% bets. However you ignore the stronger argument, which I opened with and repeatedly pointed out, which is that you can't estimate probabilities well enough to use it, and that if you can estimate probabilities well enough to benefit from Kelly, that ability to estimate probabilities itself almost always unlocks strategies that strictly dominate any benefit Kelly gives you. It's useless in practice.

parent ltbarcly3 5 years ago

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