{"id":24582,"date":"2025-07-18T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/?p=24582"},"modified":"2025-07-17T11:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T15:25:12","slug":"the-10000-las-vegas-bet-that-helped-beat-wall-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/the-10000-las-vegas-bet-that-helped-beat-wall-street\/","title":{"rendered":"The $10,000 Las Vegas Bet That Helped Beat Wall Street"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Managing Editor\u2019s Note: <\/strong>Keith Kaplan \u2013 CEO of Tradesmith \u2013 is going to tell us about \u201cthe biggest breakthrough in Tradesmith\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a way to consistently use seasonality trends to find the absolute best times of year to buy and sell any asset\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And best of all, it\u2019s based on measurable, tangible patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t know, TradeSmith\u2019s mission is to provide individual investors like you with sophisticated, yet easy-to-use tools to help you make better decisions, risk less, and potentially make more with traditional stocks and cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little about Keith \u2013 he joined TradeSmith after years of frustration with the lack of available tools to help the everyday investor gain financial literacy\u2026 and has been using his 25 years\u2019 experience as a software architect and evangelist to unleash the power of software for the everyday retail investor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below, Keith will tell you more about this breakthrough\u2026 and how you can test drive their free tool <\/a> to map out a whole year of great trades.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n

The $10,000 Las Vegas Bet That Helped Beat Wall Street<\/h2>\n\n

BY KEITH KAPLAN, CEO, TRADESMITH<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1961, Ed Thorp took a $10,000 stake from legendary gambler Manny Kimmel \u2013 and more than doubled it in a single weekend at the blackjack tables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wearing a false beard, sunglasses, and a hat, Thorp wasn\u2019t easy to recognize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This MIT researcher, leading probability theorist, and part-time investor wasn\u2019t in Vegas to gamble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was there to test a theory he\u2019d developed by running thousands of simulated blackjack hands on an IBM 704 mainframe computer at MIT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What he discovered was revolutionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By keeping track of the cards that had already been played, you could tilt the odds in your favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He walked away with more than $21,000 \u2013 at a time when a university professor\u2019s annual salary was roughly half that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To avoid detection by casino bosses, Thorp used various disguises: false beards, out-of-town accents, and drugstore glasses. He wasn\u2019t cheating \u2013 he was just trying not to get thrown out for playing smarter than everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And blackjack was just the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thorp later applied the same kind of statistical edge to the stock market. And he built one of the most successful hedge funds of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 1969 and 1988, his Princeton\/Newport Partners fund earned annualized returns of 19.1%. And it had only three losing months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thorp didn\u2019t just beat the house. He beat the market.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he did it without taking wild bets, swinging for home runs, or trying to predict headlines. Instead, he found repeatable patterns that put the odds on his side \u2013 and traded accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s that kind of pattern-seeking logic that powers the \u201cgreen day\u201d trade ideas from our TradeSmith seasonality tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over our 18-year backtests, these trades delivered 857% in total returns \u2013 more than twice the return of the S&P 500 over that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in 2007, the strategy\u2019s worst year, it delivered an annualized return of 37.9%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, today, let me show you what green days are\u2026 the science behind this system\u2026 and the gains it\u2019s produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you understand how these statistical patterns work, and how they can boost your profits, you\u2019ll never look at the market the same way again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stocks Have Their Seasons, Too<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the naked eye, stocks trade erratically \u2013 soaring one day only to plummet the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when you comb through troves of past stock-price moves with pattern-spotting software, you find something you can\u2019t see with the naked eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some stocks trade so consistently \u2013 rising or falling during specific windows, year after year \u2013 that you can map out a year\u2019s worth of great trades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out stocks have their own \u201cseasons\u201d to rise or fall. A kind of summer\u2026 and a kind of winter, too. Repeating year after year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And those seasons provide a powerful edge over most investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We call the days when a stock tends to rise green days. By spotting upcoming green days, and trading them, you can stock the odds in your favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t about trying to predict the future… or pretending we can guarantee returns. It\u2019s about discovering patterns that tilt the odds in your favor \u2013 then acting on them with the kind of cold, calculated logic Thorp is famous for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not 100% accurate. No system is. But some stocks have hit their green days 80%, 90%, even 100% of the time \u2013 including years when the market as a whole was falling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s fair to be skeptical. Surely, if these patterns exist, they\u2019d be common knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s a reason why stocks\u2019 green days remain hidden to most investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We Analyze 50,000 Stocks a Day<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes a ton of data to identify seasonality trends in stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, even folks who recognize the power of seasonality can\u2019t get specific enough to pinpoint exact days to buy and sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But our algorithm runs 50,000 tests a day to analyze every stock in the major indexes and zero in on the ones with the strongest seasonality trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what it takes to point out the best opportunities, down to the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have another advantage \u2013 a team of 74 people, including computer programmers, \u201cquant\u201d investors, and data scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dedicated them to the task of gathering the data and then creating an algorithm to serve up these cycles automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when you see it in action, the strength of these trends can blow you away. Wins we\u2019ve made using this system so far include\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n