Once again the bookies are taking a large beating. I think I am going to adjust the "vigorish" setting. It's currently 5%; it might need a large adjustment to even out the profits on both sides of the game.

Any changes made will be retroactive to the first couple weeks. So bookies, don't despair, you will be taken care of.

Any other suggestions to improve the lot of the bookies are welcome.

perhaps instead of helping the weak
you can punish the strong
mandate a minimum number of events created
per player per season
without which a penalty is incurred
against his final winnings

Nobody created an event about the game, in which the only two unbeaten teams of winter league play against each other? Sissies!

At first I thought: don't mandate an increase in the vig because it's up the bookies to be smart make better lines. Now I'm thinking that why not do it the way it's done in real life -- let the bookies set the vig themselves! As a bettor, then I can choose not only what events I think give me the best chances of winning and margin of return, but also which ones have the best price. Another layer of strategy.

Dolemite, that is a very good idea. Before I take the trouble of setting it up, I'd like to get some idea of whether it would do anything to solve the problem facing HURL Pick 'em: the lack of events to bet on.

If anyone has a spare minute or two, I'd appreciate hearing from you (those who haven't created any events and those who are probably not going to create any more because of all the money they lost):

1) Would you be more likely to create an event if the vigorish was increased from 5% to 20% (that would mean that a winning $1000 bet on a 50/50 event would only pay out $800, instead of the current $950)?

2) Would you be more likely to create an event if you could set your own vigorish level?

3) Would you be more likely to create an event if you received extra "Salary" for doing so (~$3000 - $5000)?

4) Is there anything that you can think of that would make you more likely to create an event, or do you just want someone else to do it?

I haven't actually created an event yet this season, so I'm truant myself. Perhaps another idea is to not only allow bookies to set their vig, but also have something similar to your suggestion #3 -- instead of a flat salary for creating an event, but rather a per-bettor salary for each event you create (e.g. $200 per bettor). For example, if my event gets 5 people to bet on it, I get the vig from the outstanding gaming enthusiasts that populate the HURL Pick'em community, but also $1000 from the illustrious folks at the HURL Pick'em Institute itself.

there is no sweet singular way i'm ever going to create an event on this godforsaken site..

Building on one of Dolemite's ideas I have added a "Bookie bonus" feature:

Each week, for every event created $3000 is added to a pool of bookie bonus money. This money is then split between all the bookies of the week, with each bookie's share determined by the relative amount wagered on their event.

The intention is to give the bookies extra salary to reflect their extra contribution to the game, but to base the amount on how "popular" their event is, which is roughly measured by how much money is wagered on the event.

This has injected $48,000 of new cash into the game (16 events so far x $3000), which has pushed some of the more active bookies to the top of the standings.

Comments are of course welcome. I am still intending to allow bookies to also set their own vigorish level, but I'm not sure when I will get around to it.

not creating events as a strategy.. ever hear of it?

this new bookie bonus changes the whole game and retroactively changing the salary scheme undermines the integrity of this (already) terrible site. the only way to do this fairly is to make these changes active as of today's date.

Okay, I have taken away all the bookie bonuses for Weeks 1 to 4. (You can still see what the bonuses would have amounted to on the "Event history" pages.)

The bookie bonus rule will be in effect for Week 5 onwards (i.e. starting now).

merry christmas you filthy animals..

Hmm, can't enter the result of an event, keep getting the "Application error (Rails)" message...?

There is a problem with the "Enter results" page. Don't worry about entering your result, diesel, I'll take care of it for you.

It may be only my computer, but I can only see 5 events for this week on the main page while I know there are actually 6 events. That's not really fair to the guy who created the event that's not shown (although I know how to see "all events"). Is it possible that there's a limit to how many events are shown on the main page at any one time?

The front page only shows the 5 most recently updated events for the week (this is the first week in HURL Pick 'em history that there have been more than 5 events). The idea is that the front page only gives an overview of what is going on (similar to how only the top 10 players are shown).

I could easily increase this number, but it has to be capped somewhere. Your grandson could be playing HURL Pick 'em with hundreds of events to bet on; obviously all of them couldn't be shown on the front page.

Can it be set up to show all events for the current week? This could very well be important now that we have a system that rewards those events that get the most play.