Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Session 2-1-B: Gaming Regulators Africa, Linda E. De Vries

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary school education

Goal 3: Promote gender equity and empower women

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Stimulate entrepreneurship (SMME; development)

Session 2-1-B: A Mandate For Business Leadership: The Case Of Regulated Gambling In South Africa, Linda E. De Vries

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

South African agenda - shaped by developmental agenda

Comply with global movement on environmental issues

Global Economic melt down

Political wide spread change – 1994-2013

Strong philosophical orientation i.e. cost/benefit vs. tangible /intangible costs/benefits consumption model (De Vries- 1991)

Caution on becoming a gambling dependant nation

Purpose to legalise but not aggressive - consumption model (NGB Act 1996 /amended NGB Act 2004)

Private enterprise be allowed within tight regulatory framework

National lottery- good causes - aggressive –state benefit (NLB Act 2001) Normalisation of society with shift in priorities of the democracy

New formulations of Economic black EMPOWERMENT such as BRICS …

Session 2-1-C: Gambling Distortions And The Brain Reward System, Luke Clark

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Impulsive choice in PG as possible index of vmPFC dysfunction

Functional imaging of gambling near-misses

Gambling distortions following brain injury (ventromedial PFC vs insula damage)

Iterative Statistical Verification Of Probabilistic Plans, Colin M. Potts

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Artificial intelligence seeks to create intelligent agents. An agent can be anything: an autopilot, a self-driving car, a robot, a person, or even an anti-virus system. While the current state-of-the-art may not achieve intelligence (a rather dubious thing to quantify) it certainly achieves a sense of autonomy. A key aspect of an autonomous system is its ability to maintain and guarantee safety—defined as avoiding some set of undesired outcomes. The piece of software responsible for this is called a planner, which is essentially an automated problem solver. An advantage computer planners have over humans is their ability to consider and …

Session 1-4-D: Leading Together: The Evolution Of Responsible Gambling In Canada, Jim Engel, Paul Pellizzari, Paul W. Smith

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Agenda

Background: Gambling in Canada
Responsible Gambling Framework
The notion of “player sustainability”
Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs)
Internet gambling
Branding RG
Data analytics
Voluntary Self-Exclusion
RG Standards
Leading together: collaboration across jurisdictions

Session 1-4-A: Comparing Longitudinal Studies Of Gambling: Methods & Findin, Rachel A. Volberg

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

What do we know about risk factors for PG?

Vast majority of research carried out on PG risk factors has involved cross-sectional surveys

PG status at a single point in time statistically correlated with behaviors & characteristics assessed at the same time

Cannot resolve the “chicken and egg” problem

• Does PG precede other disorders?
• Do other disorders precede PG?
• Or does one underlying condition account for both?

Session 1-4-A: Pathways Of Gambling Problem Severity: Follow-Up From A General Population Survey, Sylvia Kairouz, Christelle Luce

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Study objectives

Describe trajectories of change in gambling patterns and problems among a cohort of gamblers;

Model change over time based on life events.

Session 1-4-B: Gambling And Marijuana Use In The Netherlands: Is Legalization The Best Tool For Dealing With "Naughty Habits?", William N. Thompson, Laura K. Thompson

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

In 1976, the Netherlands embraced two policy initiatives which encompassed similar objectives. The policies sought to control “undesired substances” via the process of legalization. One legalization process involved casino gambling. The policies have sometimes led to desired results (the right road), while at other times they have led to undesirable results (the wrong road). Now in 2013, without an observable crossroad or even fork in the road, The Netherlands is poised to deviate from a right road to travel down a wrong road by placing rather severe restrictions upon the operations of “Coffee Houses” which have been “serving” customers measured …

Session 1-4-A: Results From The Swedish Longitudinal Gambling Study (Swelogs): Changes Between 1998, 2009, And 2010, Ula Romild, Jessika Svensson

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Public Health Objectives

1. The overarching aim of Sweden’s national public health policy is to create social conditions that will ensure good health, on equal terms for the entire population.

2. The aim for society’s measures against problem gambling is to reduce harm from exaggerated gambling.

Session 1-3-E: Hitting The Sweet Spot: Lottery Promotion And Vulnerability, Elisabeth Papineau, Jean-François Biron, Fanny Lemetayer, Amadou Barry

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Literature about lottery marketing and vulnerability

Lottery advertising in Quebec

Project phases

Results

Conclusion

Session 1-3-F: The Victorian Gambling Study Identifying And Predicting Risks, Rosa Billi

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Overview

Background

Study design

• Incidence
• Transitions
• Risk & protective
• Co morbidities

Session 1-2-F: Sports As An Alternative Asset Class: Gambling As An Investment, Brendan Poots

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Genesis of the idea came in 2007 in NYC when studying at Columbia. The trading of sports utilising strategies and other traditional financial market practices was identified as a burgeoning opportunity.

Towards the end of 2007 a private Fund with owner’s capital was started.

Global Financial Crisis in 2008 – all asset classes lost value. Diversification did not work. The Olympics, the Superbowl, the World Series and all the Grand Slam tennis and golf tournaments went ahead unaffected.

Priomha Capital Sports Hedge Fund Founded in 2010

Global HQ – Melbourne

Trading office – London & Las Vegas (2014)

Priomha Capital …

Session 1-2-F: Rationality And Risk Intelligence In Binary Betting, Raph Di Guisto, Aaron C. Brown, Nick Maughan

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

We analyze 1.6 million binary bets on financial markets totaling $600 million in stakes, placed by 21,000 bettors at a large Internet betting site. The data set is unusually large and complete, plus has one additional important advantage: we can obtain objective independent estimates of the ex ante probability of winning each bet, using data from financial markets. This allows us to distinguish bettor profit due to superior prediction of financial events from bettor profit due to exploiting ex ante favorable odds situations. We focus on the degree or type of skill possessed by bettors (if any), and the amount …

Session 1-2-A: A Comparison Of Outcome Efficacy Between Residential And Intensive Outpatient Treatment For Disordered Gambling As Measured By Gamtoms, Reece Middleton

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Conclusions

Whereas, it is apparent that each of the Programs is clearly efficacious, as evidenced by major improvements in all evaluated life areas for clients of both, it seems that Residential Treatment, for those able to accomplish it, would have the Advantage. It is further indicated that continued involvement in recovery-oriented activity, such as, Aftercare and 12-Step Programs produces sought-after results for all participants.

Session 1-2-A: Building, Maintaining And Evaluating A Statewide Treatment Program For Problem Gambling, Timothy W. Fong

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Shows how to build, maintain and evaluate programs for problem gambling

Program: The 15th International Conference On Gambling & Risk Taking, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas, University Of Nevada, Reno

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Listing of presentations, events, and sponsors

A Versatile Test For Equality Of Two Survival Functions Based On Weighted Differences Of Kaplan-Meier Curves, Hajime Uno, Lu Tian, Brian Claggett, L. J. Wei

Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series

With censored event time observations, the logrank test is the most popular tool for testing the equality of two underlying survival distributions. Although this test is asymptotically distribution-free, it may not be powerful when the proportional hazards assumption is violated. Various other novel testing procedures have been proposed, which generally are derived by assuming a class of specific alternative hypotheses with respect to the hazard functions. The test considered by Pepe and Fleming (1989) is based on a linear combination of weighted differences of two Kaplan-Meier curves over time and is a natural tool to assess the difference of two …

Subsemble: An Ensemble Method For Combining Subset-Specific Algorithm Fits, Stephanie Sapp, Mark J. Van Der Laan, John Canny

U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Ensemble methods using the same underlying algorithm trained on different subsets of observations have recently received increased attention as practical prediction tools for massive datasets. We propose Subsemble: a general subset ensemble prediction method, which can be used for small, moderate, or large datasets. Subsemble partitions the full dataset into subsets of observations, fits a specified underlying algorithm on each subset, and uses a clever form of V-fold cross-validation to output a prediction function that combines the subset-specific fits. We give an oracle result that provides a theoretical performance guarantee for Subsemble. Through simulations, we demonstrate that Subsemble can be …

Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation For Dynamic And Static Longitudinal Marginal Structural Working Models, Maya L. Petersen, Joshua Schwab, Susan Gruber, Nello Blaser, Michael Schomaker, Mark J. Van Der Laan

U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

This paper describes a targeted maximum likelihood estimator (TMLE) for the parameters of longitudinal static and dynamic marginal structural models. We consider a longitudinal data structure consisting of baseline covariates, time-dependent intervention nodes, intermediate time-dependent covariates, and a possibly time dependent outcome. The intervention nodes at each time point can include a binary treatment as well as a right-censoring indicator. Given a class of dynamic or static interventions, a marginal structural model is used to model the mean of the intervention specific counterfactual outcome as a function of the intervention, time point, and possibly a subset of baseline covariates. Because …

Varying Index Coefficient Models, Shujie Ma, Peter Xuekun Song

The University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

It has been a long history of utilizing interactions in regression analysis to investigate interactive effects of covariates on response variables. In this paper we aim to address two kinds of new challenges resulted from the inclusion of such high-order effects in the regression model for complex data. The first kind arises from a situation where interaction effects of individual covariates are weak but those of combined covariates are strong, and the other kind pertains to the presence of nonlinear interactive effects. Generalizing the single index coefficient regression model (Xia and Li, 1999), we propose a new class of semiparametric …