Journal articles on the topic 'Horse race betting as an investment'

Conditional logistic regression has remained a mainstay in predicting horse racing out- comes since the 1980’s. In this paper, we propose and apply novel modifications of the regression model to include parameter regularization and a frailty contribution that exploits winning dividends. Additionally, the entire model was fit using state-of-the art parallelization methods on commodity graphical processing units. (GPU) The model is trained using 4 years of horse racing data from Hong Kong, and then tested on a hold-out year of races. Simulated betting produces a return on investment significantly higher than any other published methods involving Hong Kong races.

A bookmaker takes bets on a two-horse race, attempting to minimise expected loss over all possible outcomes of the race. Profits are controlled by manipulation of customers' betting behaviour, which is assumed to be determined uniquely by the price quoted for each horse. We consider different strategies for choosing these prices as bets accumulate, and examine the penalty incurred by the use of a strategy other than the optimal one, in the general case where the distribution of the customers' betting probabilities is unknown.

This paper examines the empirical importance of late money on market efficiency in horse race gambling. Our inquiry into the effect of late money on parimutuel pools uses data from Australian thoroughbred horse races over the entire 2006 racing season and includes every race at all thoroughbred tracks. This amounts to 14,854 races with an average of 10.37 starters per race. The evidence overwhelmingly supports the hypotheses that late money is smart money and late money improves market efficiency.

Consumer interest in horse racing has declined significantly in North America. In an attempt to reverse this decline, additional gambling opportunities, including simulcast betting, have been added at race tracks. This paper investigates the impact of simulcast betting on live racing handle at Canadian horse racetracks. Using data from the 18 largest Canadian racetracks over the period 1999 through 2006, IV results indicate that increases in remote wagering opportunities in Canada lead to small positive increases in live handle. Simulcast betting opportunities do not cannibalize live wagering, rather they increase live wagering.

This paper examines how betting experience is associated with horse race bettors’ sequential risk taking. We use an individual-level data set of 5,217 individual bettors with 167,816 betting-related transactions. Our analyses suggest that inexperienced bettors take on more risk than experienced bettors do after they experience gains. We also find some indication that experienced bettors become more risk averse than inexperienced ones after incurring losses.

This paper investigates stylized facts about pari-mutuel betting. Standardbred racing at The Meadowlands Racetrack on Friday and Saturday nights is analyzed to determine if bettors in this particular venue are efficient. In addition, adages concerning horse racing, such as the favorite wins 33 percent of time, are tested. Finally, a logistic regression is employed to determine if characteristics of a race, such as the amount of the purse, can help determine if the favorite horse is more likely to win the race.

A large share of the UK off-course horse racing betting market involves winning payouts determined at Starting Prices (SP). This implies that gamblers can bet with off-course bookies on any horse before a race at the final pre-race odds as set by on-course bookies for that horse.Given the oligopolistic structure of the off-course gambling market in the UK, a market that is dominated by a small number of large bookmaking firms, we study the phenomenon of SP as a type of self-enforcing implicit collusion. We show that given the uncertainty about a race outcome, and their ability to influence the prices set by on-course bookies, agreeing to lay bets at SP is superior for off-course bookies as compared with offering fixed odds. We thus extend the results of Rotemberg and Saloner (1990) to markets with uncertainty about both demand and outcomes,We test our model by studying the predicted effects of SP betting on the behavior of on-course bookies. Using data drawn from both the UK and Australian on-course betting markets, we show that the differences between these markets are consistent with the predicted effects of SP betting in the UK off-course market and its absence from the Australian market.

We investigated a time series of betting rates in a pari-mutuel betting system of Japanese horse races. Principal component analyses and cluster analyses suggest that the level of expectation for the favorite is the most important factor when classifying races. The dataset of the odds determined before the races used in this study is exceedingly large and detailed compared to previous studies. We also conducted detailed research on whether bets placed on the favorites tend to be concentrated just before the race.

The article deals with the question, if odds derived from the behavior of bettors in a pari-mutuel setting really reflect the chances of winning for a particular horse in a particular race. Using a unique data set with more than 46,000 race observations from Germany for the years 2001 to 2003 the paper presents evidence on the favorite long-shot bias, evaluates the predictive power of totalizator odds, uses a binary logistic regression model to predict probabilities of winning and finally suggests three wagering strategies that actually yield positive returns in a hold-out oriented analytical setting.

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the frequency of gambling involvement and the prevalence of problem gambling among horse race gamblers and to discover whether problem gambling in this sample is associated with a history of trauma. Among a sample of 266 South African horse-race gamblers (94% men and 6% women, M age 46.8 yr., SD = 13.9, range 18–85 years), 31.2% were classified as probable pathological gamblers and 19.9% with problem gambling. Major weekly gambling activities included racetrack betting (82%), purchase of lottery tickets or scratch tickets (35%), purchase of sports lottery tickets (23%), and using casino type games (18%). Trauma history was significantly associated with gambling severity.

Exotic bets: exactas, trifectas and superfectas are complicated gambles that depend on the ordering of horse in a race that can be studied by converting them into “synthetic” or “virtual” win bets. Using two ways of constructing synthetic win bets, it is shown that the favorite-longshot bias is a poor description of the returns of the trifecta and superfecta synthetic win bet. Rather, consistent with financial markets, the standard deviation of the payout of the synthetic win bet better describes the different returns of synthetic win bets.It is found that the synthetic win market dislikes standard deviation and kurtosis (and other higher-order even moments) and likes skewness (and other higher order odd moments), implying participants conform to standard utility theory in their choice between win and synthetic win bets and are not risk-loving. A co-efficient of relative risk aversion of about 3 is estimated. Including higher-order moments strongly affects the magnitude of utility function estimates.

This paper compares two approaches to predicting outcomes in a speculative market, the horse race betting market. In particular, the nature of one-and two-step conditional logit procedures involving a process for exploding the choices et are outlined, their strengths and weaknesses are compared and the irrelative effectiveness is evaluated by predicting winning probabilities for horse races at a UK racetrack. The models incorporate variables which are widely recognised as having predictive power and which should therefore be effectively discounted in market odds. Despite this handicap, both approaches produce probability estimates which can be used to earn positive returns, but the two-step approach yields substantially higher profits.

Although there is a growing body of research on public social practices related to the use of mobile phones, internet terminals, and laptops, there are few integrated analyses of the uses of multiple interactive technologies in public settings, and especially those involving sports. This article looks at one such space in which technology is embedded in a complicated network of social and economic relations: the screen dominated pari-mutuel horse race wagering facility. Specifically, the paper examines the relationship that built environments, public screen, and communication technologies have on social practices, and considers the juxtaposition of different places in the quotidian, and in a place of reflexive research practice.

Horse racing is the most popular sport in Hong Kong. Nowhere else in the world is such attention paid to the races and such large sums of money bet. It is literally a “national sport”. Popular literature has many stories about computerized “betting teams” winning fortunes by using statistical analysis.[1] Additionally, numerous academic papers have been published on the subject, implementing a variety of statistical methods. The academic justification for these papers is that a parimutuel game represents a study in decisions under uncertainty, efficiency of markets, and even investor psychology. A review of the available published literature has failed to find any Bayesian approach to this modeling challenge.This study will attempt to predict the running speed of a horse in a given race. To that effect, the coefficients of a linear model are estimated using the Bayesian method of Markov Chain Monte Carlo. Two methods of computing the sampled posterior are used and their results compared. The Gibbs method assumes that all the coefficients are normally distributed, while the Metropolis method allows for their distribution to have an unknown shape. I will calculate and compare the predictive results of several models using these Bayesian Methods.

In the 10 provinces and 2 territories of Canada in 2000, but not in 1990, the total number of types of gambling activities was positively associated with rates of robbery ( p < .05). Controls for other social variables did not eliminate these associations. With so many correlations in the present study the likelihood of a Type I error was quite large. Alpha was adjusted to control that likelihood. Statistical analysis now required even stronger evidence before concluding that there were significant relationships between crime and gambling variables or among gambling variables. In the 10 provinces of Canada in 1999/2000, the total numbers of electronic gambling machines for each province was associated with rates of theft over $5000 ( p < .01). In 1990 there were positive associations found for burglary with off-track betting and race/sportsbooks; motor vehicle theft with off-track betting, and race/sportsbooks; rate of theft with casinos; quarter horse racing with thoroughbred racing. In 2000 there were positive associations for robbery with casinos and slot machines; casinos with slot machines; scratch tickets with raffles, break-open tickets, sports tickets, and charitable bingo; raffles with break-open tickets, sports tickets, and charitable bingo; break-open tickets with sports tickets; charitable bingo with break-open tickets and sports tickets.

Betting on the racetrack and investing in the stockmarket have many characteristics in common. These similarities are discussed in this paper and the applicability of efficient markets theory to the market for horse racing bets in South Africa is examined. Both the weak form and the strong form of the efficient market hypothesis are empirically tested. The results indicate support for both forms although some small deviations from the theory do exist. Most notable of these is that on average long-odds horses win less frequently than suggested by their quoted odds whilst short-odds horses win more frequently than implied by their odds. However, these weak form deviations are not sufficient to enable consistent profits to be made. The performances of ten experts with potential access to inside information are examined and the results indicate that on average they are not able to earn superior investment returns. In fact, all ten had negative returns over the period examined and only three of them did better than the naive strategy of backing the favourite.

Jay Julian Rosellini, The German New Right: AfD, PEGIDA and the Re-imagining of National Identity (London: C. Hurst, 2019).Simon Bulmer and William E. Paterson, Germany and the European Union: Europe’s Reluctant Hegemon? (London: Red Globe Press, 2019).Susan Neiman, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).Stephan Jaeger, The Second World War in the Twenty-First-Century Museum: From Narrative, Memory, and Experience to Experientiality (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020).Robert M. Jarvis, Gambling under the Swastika: Casinos, Horse Racing, Lotteries, and Other Forms of Betting in Nazi Germany (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2019).

Professional running, derived from 19th century pedestrianism, is a gambling sport mostly confined to working men. Runners compete for prize money and, particularly, in the hope that they will win races as “dark horses” which should ensure substantial winnings from the betting ring. This sport involves handicapping athletes to level ability differences between them and, in theory, gives each competitor an equal chance of winning. Competitors conceal their true potential and lose races, however, with the dual objectives of acquiring favorable handicaps, thereby increasing their chances of success in their targeted events and getting favorable odds from the bookmakers. People in the sport use numerous tactics of secrecy and deception to reduce the risk of discovery of their dark horse prospects. A case study of a runner is presented to demonstrate the processes involved in the use of the “dark horse” strategy to win a major race.

This paper discusses risky and uncertain decision-making in the framework of gambling. The well-known anomaly of favourite-longshot bias is considered. We argue that gambling behaviour can be seen as consumption. Thus, gambling behaviour is more than a risky choice. It is reasonable to assume that the price of gambling is the take-out rate or the expected loss. We illustrate, with some elementary gambling, that the gambling markets constitute an environment where risky choices can be measured only with probabilities. Typical gambling behaviour (e.g. horse betting) is modelled by an approach that includes the attractiveness of risk, subjective probability, and the utility of money. We tested the favourite-longshot bias with a large accumulated dataset from Finnish horse race tracks that monitored more than 27,000 races over a five-year period. The empirical results indicate that Finnish gamblers’ behaviour is biased: they gamble too little on favourites and too much on longshots. Our results confirm the universality of the favourite-longshot bias that can be found in Western Europe, Australia and the USA.

The theoretical and applied distinction between a propensity toward a more intuitive decision style versus a more analytical style has gained prominence in recent years. A self-report measure, the Decision Making Styles Inventory, is presented and is shown to differentiate among those who endorse an analytical, an intuitive, or an avoidant, regret-based decision style. Results from one study, a horse race betting task, indicated that those who endorsed a decision style, particularly those endorsing a flexible analytical and intuitive style, performed better on the task than those who did not. A second study clearly showed that decision style was related to self reports of self-efficacy, optimism, and self-regard. These results suggest that having either an analytical, intuitive or combined decision style is beneficial to the decision maker.

Empirical studies of horse race betting in the US, the UK, Australia, and Germany have empirically established the so called favorite-longshot bias. It was found that bets on longshots on average lose much more than bets on favorites. The theoretical literature on wagering markets has offered a variety of explanations for that bias. One of the most prominent is the assumption of a homogeneous bettor population with a preference for risk. However, the risk-love explanation has also been severely challenged. We add to this challenge by proposing a different explanation of the favorite-longshot bias. We show that if populations of bettors have only noisy estimates of horses’ true winning probabilities, a favorite-longshot bias will be the market equilibrium outcome even with risk neutral bettors and even if the median estimate is correct. We provide evidence on four different types of bets broadly consistent with the noisy estimates assumption but not with the risk-love explanation.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether or not there is an association between engaging in traditional forms of gambling and engaging in high-risk stock trading and, if so, to examine game play patterns of high-risk stock traders, as well as identify any socio-demographic similarities or differences between the two groups. Logistic regressions on data from two large Canadian data sets were undertaken to examine which variables best differentiate traditional gamblers from high-risk stock traders. The results indicate that high-risk stock traders have a higher frequency of gambling, engage in a larger range of gambling activities, and are more likely to be problem gamblers. Additionally, the type of gambling activities that high-risk stock traders participate in suggests that they are a sub-group of skill-based gamblers who also prefer gambling on casino table games, sports betting, dog and horse race betting, and games of skill for money over chance based games such as electronic gaming machines, bingo, and instant win tickets. High-risk stock traders, compared to traditional gamblers were more likely to be male, have a higher income, be better educated, and to be of Asian or “other” descent, not be divorced, widowed or separated, and be self-employed or employed full-time. However, unlike other skill-based gamblers, high-risk stock traders tended to be older rather than younger, and had a high income rather than a low income.

Jakarta International Equestrian Park or JIEP (Indonesian: Horse racing Pulomas) is a sports venue located in Pulomas, Jakarta, Indonesia. JIEP is owned by PT Jakarta Propertindo (JAKPRO) and is managed by PT Pulomas Jaya. Built in the 1970 's. On August 2016, the horse race was renovated for the 2018 Asian Games. After renovations, the arena was inaugurated on August 2, 2018. The Arena will be used as the venue for the 2018 Asian Games with a land area of 35 hectares. This final task rises from the problem of the study object, which is the inoptimisation of land use in the area and has not been using by general public. So the initiation was created to conduct a study of the development plan which needed on the area that owns the 22 hectares of landbanks. The purpose and objectives of this study is to create a development plan use by doing feasibility studies, so JIEP can be utilized and optimized. The analysis used is location and site analysis, best practice, market, space requirement, and last is investment analysis. The Output of this analysis is a plan of development in the form of masterplan and cashflow.AbstrakJakarta International Equestrian Park atau JIEP (Indonesian : Pacuan Kuda Pulomas) adalah tempat olahraga berkuda yang terletak di Pulomas, Jakarta, Indonesia. JIEP dimiliki oleh PT Jakarta Propertindo (JAKPRO) dan dikelola oleh PT Pulomas Jaya. Dibangun pada tahun 1970-an. Kemudian pada bulan Agustus 2016, pacuan kuda ini direnovasi untuk digunakan nantinya pada Asian Games 2018. Setelah renovasi, arena diresmikan pada 2 Agustus 2018. Arena ini akan digunakan sebagai tempat untuk Asian Games 2018 dengan luas lahan seluas 35 hektar. Tugas akhir ini bermula dari permasalahan pada objek studi yaitu ketidak optimalan penggunaan lahan pada kawasan tersebut dan belum dimanfaakan oleh masyarakat umum. Sehingga tercipta inisiasi untuk melakukan studi terhadap rencana pengembangan yang dibutuhkan pada kawasan yang memiliki landbank seluas 22 hektar tersebut. Maksud dan tujuan studi ini adalah membuat rencana pengembangan sehingga kawasan dapat dimanfaatkan dan dioptimalkan penggunaannya dengan melakukan studi kelayakan. Studi kelayakan tersebut terdiri dari beberapa analisis, yaitu analisis lokasi dan tapak, best practice, pasar, kebutuhan ruang, dan terakhir adalah analisis investasi. Output dari analisis ini kemudian adalah rencana pengembangan dalam bentuk masterplan dan cashflow.

AbstractThe Netherlands are a small country with an urban underworld history before a serious problem of organized crime has developed since the 1980. The interest of the mob in Horse Race Betting flourished before that time. After a long period of Prohibition since 1911 horse racing (especially trotting) and betting on the results has become a very popular pastime since it was permitted in 1948. Especially during the nineteen seventies and eighties horse races drew a large audience and to a lesser degree they still do. However, bookmaking has always been forbidden since 1911 and that by itself presented in invitation to (organized) crime. Other well-known criminal byproducts of horse racing such as drugging horses, laundering money and matchfixing have been observed but as we measured only to a very moderate degree. The social variety of aficionados for the races is amazing. While doing historical and ethnographic field research at the race tracks we registered a mixture of people of humble origins as well as big entrepreneurs. There were members of the royal family but also well-known criminals. It is amazing to find out to what degree the latter have been accepted by the entire horse racing community.

Abstract This study examined how recent losses predict the frequency of play in online betting. Previous studies have suggested that players tend to decrease betting volume and consequently take on less risk after a losing session. We used a daily panel of actual gambling data and survival regression to investigate how incurring losses predicts the duration to the next betting day. Our main findings were that, after a losing betting day, a bettor typically abstained from betting for a 27% longer time than after a day he or she broke even. Further, we found that either untypically high wins or loses significantly predicted the amount of time to the next gambling event. This study adds to the gambling literature by presenting evidence on a reduction in betting activity following a losing session.

AbstractThis study examines the dynamics and the fit of a time-to-build model. The benchmark model employs the investment adjustment cost specification of Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (2005) and the alternative model utilizes the time-to-build specification of Casares (2006). The Bayesian estimation result conveys the following implications: In general, the time-to-build model generates similar dynamics as the benchmark model. But it does not improve the fit of the model to the data. The model comparison, based on marginal likelihood and simulation results, makes the benchmark model the winner of the horse race.

O presente trabalho busca realizar uma análise reflexiva referente à relação estabelecida entre os cavalos da raça Puro Sangue Inglês (PSI) e as práticas do esporte de corridas denominado de turfe. Prática que, em grande medida, adquiriu popularidade pela sua extensa aproximação com os jogos de apostas. Esta associação marcou definitivamente a existência do turfe no cenário do mercado de diversões esportivas. A relação do animal e seu montador - chamado de jóquei - adquire papel central, perdurando até os dias de hoje. A pergunta: “quem ganha, o cavalo ou o jóquei?” vai além de uma mera retórica, pois evidencia a relação homem/animal quanto um “agenciamento” (Deleuze 1995) de unidade real mínima que possibilita o desdobramento do espetáculo, assim como das apostas oriundas dele. Deste modo, busco pensar o agenciamento homem/animal enquanto “interlocutores vitais” (Ingold, 2012) neste esporte. E que são recorrentemente classificados e estratificados em cada páreo por jogadores e apostadores aficionados de modo a alcançar uma aposta vencedora.Palavras chave: Jogo. Cavalo. Domesticação. Turfe. Apostas.The purity of a hybrid blood: the turf behind the scenes to produce racehorses and men.AbstractThis study aims to conduct a reflective analysis on the relationship established between racehorses Thoroughbred and the racing sport practices called turf. Practice that largely acquired popularity for its extensive approach with gambling. It should be noted that in the period that horse racing has enjoyed greater popularity, the horse had great importance in Brazilian society. At that time, the animal relationship and its editor - called jockey - acquires central role, lasting until today. The question "who wins, the horse or the jockey" goes beyond mere rhetoric, it shows the man/animal relationship as an 'agency' (Deleuze, 1995) of a minimum actual unit that allows the race itself, as well as arising of betting practice. Thus, I try to think the agency man/animal as "vital actors" (Ingold, 2012) in this sport. That are recurrently classified and stratified into each match by players and fans bettors in order to achieve winnings.Keywords: Game. Horse. Domestication. Horse racing. Bets.

Background: Many features of Internet gambling may impact problem severity, particularly for vulnerable populations (availability, anonymity, a convenience and ease of play, digital forms of payment, and a higher level of immersion). To prevent the risks associated with excessive gambling and to inform gamblers, we need responsible gambling strategies. Gambling-related warning messages are one possible strategy that can help minimizing gambling-related harm.Methods: Our experimental study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of self-appraisal and informative pop-up messages compared to a control condition (blank pop-up messages), for both at-risk (ARG) and low risk/non-problem Internet gamblers (LR/NPG) according to their favorite type of game, in a semi naturalistic setting and with a 15-day follow-up. During the experimental session, participants were invited to gamble on their favorite website with their own money in the laboratory. Effectiveness was investigated through the impact of pop-ups on gambling behavior (money wagered and time spent), craving, cognitive distortions, and gambling experience, taking into account message recall. We analyzed data from 58 participants, playing preferentially either to skill and chance bank games (sports betting, horse race betting) and skill and chance social games (poker).Results: We observed a significant decrease in the illusion of control for ARG in the informative pop-up condition at the 15-day follow-up. A significant effect of self-appraisal pop-ups compared to blank pop-up messages was also demonstrated only for sport and horse bettors, with a decrease on time spent gambling and an increase of gambling-related expectancies at the follow-up. Finally, we also observed that a majority of the participants were disturbed and irritated by pop-ups during their gambling session.Conclusions: The results of our study demonstrated the limited impact of pop-up warning messages on gambling behavior and cognition in Internet gamblers according to the type of game and the status of gamblers. The limited impact of warning messages on gambling behavior and the inconvenience of the pop-ups for Internet gamblers lead us to only consider warning messages as one piece of a larger responsible gambling strategy.Trial Registration Number: NCT01789580 on February 12, 2013.

IntroductionThis paper argues that the industrial contexts of re-imagining, or transforming, literary icons deploy the promotional strategies that are associated with what are usually seen as lesser, or purely commercial, genres. Promotional paratexts (Genette Paratexts; Gray; Hills) reveal transformations of content that position audiences to receive them as creative innovations, superior in many senses to their literary precursors due to the distinctive expertise of creative professionals. This interpretation leverages Matt Hills’ argument that certain kinds of “quality” screened drama are discursively framed as possessing the cultural capital associated with auterist cinema, despite their participation in the marketing logics of media franchising (Johnson). Adaptation theorist Linda Hutcheon proposes that when audiences receive literary adaptations, their pleasure inheres in a mixture of “repetition and difference”, “familiarity and novelty” (114). The difference can take many forms, but may be framed as guaranteed by the “distinction”, or—in Bourdieu’s terms—the cultural capital, of talented individuals and companies. Gerard Genette (Palimpsests) argued that “proximations” or updatings of classic literature involve acknowledging historical shifts in ideological norms as well as aesthetic techniques and tastes. When literary brands are made over using different media, there are economic lures to participation in currently fashionable technologies, as well as current political values. Linda Hutcheon also underlines the pragmatic constraints on the re-imagining of literary brands. “Expensive collaborative art forms” (87) such as films and large stage productions look for safe bets, seeking properties that have the potential to increase the audience for their franchise. Thus the marketplace influences both production and the experience of audiences. While this paper does not attempt a thoroughgoing analysis of audience reception appropriate to a fan studies approach, it borrows concepts from Matt Hills’s theorisation of marketing communication associated with screen “makeovers”. It shows that literary fiction and cinematic texts associated with celebrated authors or auteurist producer-directors share branding discourses characteristic of contemporary consumer culture. Strategies include marketing “reveals” of transformed content (Hills 319). Transformed content is presented not only as demonstrating originality and novelty; these promotional paratexts also perform displays of cultural capital on the part of production teams or of auteurist creatives (321). Case Study 1: Steven Spielberg, The Adventures of Tintin (2011) The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is itself an adaptation of a literary brand that reimagines earlier transmedia genres. According to Spielberg’s biographer, the Tintin series of bandes dessinée (comics or graphic novels) by Belgian artist Hergé (Georges Remi), has affinities with “boys’ adventure yarns” referencing and paying homage to the “silent filmmaking and the movie serials of the 1930s and ‘40s” (McBride 530). The three comics adapted by Spielberg belong to the more escapist and less “political” phase of Hergé’s career (531). As a fast-paced action movie, building to a dramatic and spectacular closure, the major plot lines of Spielberg’s film centre on Tintin’s search for clues to the secret of a model ship he buys at a street market. Teaming up with an alcoholic sea captain, Tintin solves the mystery while bullying Captain Haddock into regaining his sobriety, his family seat, and his eagerness to partner in further heroic adventures. Spielberg’s industry stature allowed him the autonomy to combine the commercial motivations of contemporary “tentpole” cinema adaptations with aspirations towards personal reputation as an auteurist director. Many of the promotional paratexts associated with the film stress the aesthetic distinction of the director’s practice alongside the blockbuster spectacle of an action film. Reinventing the Literary Brand as FranchiseComic books constitute the “mother lode of franchises” (Balio 26) in a industry that has become increasingly global and risk-adverse (see also Burke). The fan base for comic book movies is substantial and studios pre-promote their investments at events such as the four-day Comic-Con festival held annually in San Diego (Balio 26). Described as “tentpole” films, these adaptations—often of superhero genres—are considered conservative investments by the Hollywood studios because they “constitute media events; […] lend themselves to promotional tie-ins”; are “easy sells in world markets and […] have the ability to spin off sequels to create a franchise” (Balio 26). However, Spielberg chose to adapt a brand little known in the primary market (the US), thus lacking the huge fan-based to which pre-release promotional paratexts might normally be targeted. While this might seem a risky undertaking, it does reflect “changed industry realities” that seek to leverage important international markets (McBride 531). As a producer Spielberg pursued his own strategies to minimise economic risk while allowing him creative choices. This facilitated the pursuit of professional reputation alongside commercial success. The dual release of both War Horse and Tintin exemplify the director-producer’s career practice of bracketing an “entertainment” film with a “more serious work” (McBride 530). The Adventures of Tintin was promoted largely as technical tour de force and spectacle. Conversely War Horse—also adapted from a children’s text—was conceived as a heritage/nostalgia film, marked with the attention to period detail and lyric cinematography of what Matt Hills describes as “aestheticized fiction”. Nevertheless, promotional paratexts stress the discourse of auteurist transformation even in the case of the designedly more commercial Tintin film, as I discuss further below. These pre-release promotions emphasise Spielberg’s “painterly” directorial hand, as well as the professional partnership with Peter Jackson that enabled cutting edge innovation in animation. As McBride explains, the “dual release of the two films in the US was an unusual marketing move” seemingly designed to “showcase Spielberg’s artistic versatility” (McBride 530).Promotional Paratexts and Pre-Recruitment of FansAs Jonathan Gray and Jason Mittell have explained, marketing paratexts predate screen adaptations (Gray; Mittell). As part of the commercial logic of franchise development, selective release of information about a literary brand’s transformation are designed to bring fans of the “original,” or of genre communities such as fantasy or comics audiences, on board with the adaptation. Analysing Steven Moffat’s revelations about the process of adapting and creating a modern TV series from Conan Doyle’s canon (Sherlock), Matt Hills draws attention to the focus on the literary, rather than the many screen reinventions. Moffat’s focus on his childhood passion for the Holmes stories thus grounds the team’s adaptation in a period prior to any “knowledge of rival adaptations […] and any detailed awareness of canon” (326). Spielberg (unlike Jackson) denied any such childhood affective investment, claiming to have been unaware of the similarities between Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and the Tintin series until alerted by a French reviewer of Raiders (McBride 530). In discussing the paradoxical fidelity of his and Jackson’s reimagining of Tintin, Spielberg performed homage to the literary brand while emphasising the aesthetic limitations within the canon of prior adaptations:‘We want Tintin’s adventures to have the reality of a live-action film’, Spielberg explained during preproduction, ‘and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honor the distinctive look of the characters and world that Hergé created. Hergé’s characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul that goes far beyond anything we’ve been able to create with computer-animated characters.’ (McBride 531)In these “reveals”, the discourse positions Spielberg and Jackson as both fans and auteurs, demonstrating affective investment in Hergé’s concepts and world-building while displaying the ingenuity of the partners as cinematic innovators.The Branded Reveal of Transformed ContentAccording to Hills, “quality TV drama” no less than “makeover TV,” is subject to branding practices such as the “reveal” of innovations attributed to creative professionals. Marketing paratexts discursively frame the “professional and creative distinction” of the teams that share and expand the narrative universe of the show’s screen or literary precursors (319–20). Distinction here refers to the cultural capital of the creative teams, as well as to the essential differences between what adaptation theorists refer to as the “hypotext” (source/original) and “hypertext” (adaptation) (Genette Paratexts; Hutcheon). The adaptation’s individualism is fore-grounded, as are the rights of creative teams to inherit, transform, and add richness to the textual universe of the precursor texts. Spielberg denied the “anxiety of influence” (Bloom) linking Tintin and Raiders, though he is reported to have enthusiastically acknowledged the similarities once alerted to them. Nevertheless, Spielberg first optioned Hergé’s series only two years later (1983). Paratexts “reveal” Hergé’s passing of the mantle from author to director, quoting his: “ ‘Yes, I think this guy can make this film. Of course it will not be my Tintin, but it can be a great Tintin’” (McBride 531).Promotional reveals in preproduction show both Spielberg and Jackson performing mutually admiring displays of distinction. Much of this is focused on the choice of motion capture animation, involving attachment of motion sensors to an actor’s body during performance, permitting mapping of realistic motion onto the animated figure. While Spielberg paid tribute to Jackson’s industry pre-eminence in this technical field, the discourse also underlines Spielberg’s own status as auteur. He claimed that Tintin allowed him to feel more like a painter than any prior film. Jackson also underlines the theme of direct imaginative control:The process of operating the small motion-capture virtual camera […] enabled Spielberg to return to the simplicity and fluidity of his 8mm amateur films […] [The small motion-capture camera] enabled Spielberg to put himself literally in the spaces occupied by the actors […] He could walk around with them […] and improvise movements for a film Jackson said they decided should have a handheld feel as much as possible […] All the production was from the imagination right to the computer. (McBride 532)Along with cinematic innovation, pre-release promotions thus rehearse the imaginative pre-eminence of Spielberg’s vision, alongside Jackson and his WETA company’s fantasy credentials, their reputation for meticulous detail, and their innovation in the use of performance capture in live-action features. This rehearsal of professional capital showcases the difference and superiority of The Adventures of Tintin to previous animated adaptations.Case Study 2: Andrew Motion: Silver, Return to Treasure Island (2012)At first glance, literary fiction would seem to be a far-cry from the commercial logics of tentpole cinema. The first work of pure fiction by a former Poet Laureate of Great Britain, updating a children’s classic, Silver: Return to Treasure Island signals itself as an exemplar of quality fiction. Yet the commercial logics of the publishing industry, no less than other media franchises, routinise practices such as author interviews at bookshop visits and festivals, generating paratexts that serve its promotional cycle. Motion’s choice of this classic for adaptation is a step further towards a popular readership than his poetry—or the memoirs, literary criticism, or creative non-fiction (“fabricated” or speculative biographies) (see Mars-Jones)—that constitute his earlier prose output. Treasure Island’s cultural status as boy’s adventure, its exotic setting, its dramatic characters long available in the public domain through earlier screen adaptations, make it a shrewd choice for appropriation in the niche market of literary fiction. Michael Cathcart’s introduction to his ABC Radio National interview with the author hones in on this:Treasure Island is one of those books that you feel as if you’ve read, event if you haven’t. Long John Silver, young Jim Hawkins, Blind Pew, Israel Hands […], these are people who stalk our collective unconscious, and they’re back. (Cathcart)Motion agrees with Cathcart that Treasure Island constitutes literary and common cultural heritage. In both interviews I analyse in the discussion here, Motion states that he “absorbed” the book, “almost by osmosis” as a child, yet returned to it with the mature, critical, evaluative appreciation of the young adult and budding poet (Darragh 27). Stevenson’s original is a “bloody good book”; the implication is that it would not otherwise have met the standards of a literary doyen, possessing a deep knowledge of, and affect for, the canon of English literature. Commercial Logic and Cultural UpdatingSilver is an unauthorised sequel—in Genette’s taxonomy, a “continuation”. However, in promotional interviews on the book and broadcast circuit, Motion claimed a kind of license from the practice of Stevenson, a fellow writer. Stevenson himself notes that a significant portion of the “bar silver” remained on the island, leaving room for a sequel to be generated. In Silver, Jim, the son of Stevenson’s Jim Hawkins, and Natty, daughter of Long John Silver and the “woman of colour”, take off to complete and confront the consequences of their parents’ adventures. In interviews, Motion identifies structural gaps in the precursor text that are discursively positioned to demand completion from, in effect, Stevenson’s literary heir: [Stevenson] was a person who was interested in sequels himself, indeed he wrote a sequel to Kidnapped [which is] proof he was interested in these things. (Cathcart)He does leave lots of doors and windows open at the end of Treasure Island […] perhaps most bewitchingly for me, as the Hispaniola sails away, they leave behind three maroons. So what happened to them? (Darragh)These promotional paratexts drop references to Great Expectations, Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies, Wild Sargasso Sea, the plays of Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard, the poetry of Auden and John Clare, and Stevenson’s own “self-conscious” sources: Defoe, Marryat. Discursively, they evidence “double coding” (Hills) as both homage for the canon and the literary “brand” of Stevenson’s popular original, while implicated in the commercial logic of the book industry’s marketing practices.Displays of DistinctionMotion’s interview with Sarah Darragh, for the National Association of Teachers of English, performs the role of man of letters; Motion “professes” and embodies the expertise to speak authoritatively on literature, its criticism, and its teaching. Literature in general, and Silver in particular, he claims, is not “just polemic”, that is “not how it works”, but it does has the ability to recruit readers to moral perspectives, to convey “ new ideas[s] of the self.” Silver’s distinction from Treasure Island lies in its ability to position “deep” readers to develop what is often labelled “theory of mind” (Wolf and Barzillai): “what good literature does, whether you know it or not, is to allow you to be someone else for a bit,” giving us “imaginative projection into another person’s experience” (Darragh 29). A discourse of difference and superiority is also associated with the transformed “brand.” Motion is emphatic that Silver is not a children’s book—“I wouldn’t know how to do that” (Darragh 28)—a “lesser” genre in canonical hierarchies. It is a writerly and morally purposeful fiction, “haunted” by greats of the canon and grounded in expertise in philosophical and literary heritage. In addition, he stresses the embedded seriousness of his reinvention: it is “about how to be a modern person and about greed and imperialism” (Darragh 27), as well as a deliberatively transformed artefact:The road to literary damnation is […] paved with bad sequels and prequels, and the reason that they fail […] is that they take the original on at its own game too precisely […] so I thought, casting my mind around those that work [such as] Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead […] or Jean Rhys’ wonderful novel Wide Sargasso Sea which is about the first Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre […] that if I took a big step away from the original book I would solve this problem of competing with something I was likely to lose in competition with and to create something that was a sort of homage […] towards it, but that stood at a significant distance from it […]. (Cathcart) Motion thus rehearses homage and humility, while implicitly defending the transformative imagination of his “sequel” against the practice of lesser, failed, clonings.Motion’s narrative expansion of Stevenson’s fictional universe is an example of “overwriting continuity” established by his predecessor, and thus allowing him to make “meaningful claims to creative and professional distinction” while demonstrating his own “creative viewpoint” (Hills 320). The novel boldly recapitulates incidental details, settings, and dramatic embedded character-narrations from Treasure Island. Distinctively, though, its opening sequence is a paean to romantic sensibility in the tradition of Wordsworth’s The Prelude (1799–1850).The Branded Reveal of Transformed ContentSilver’s paratexts discursively construct its transformation and, by implication, improvement, from Stevenson’s original. Motion reveals the sequel’s change of zeitgeist, its ideological complexity and proximity to contemporary environmental and postcolonial values. These are represented through the superior perspective of romanticism and the scientific lens on the natural world:Treasure Island is a pre-Enlightenment story, it is pre-French Revolution, it’s the bad old world […] where people have a different ideas of democracy […] Also […] Jim is beginning to be aware of nature in a new way […] [The romantic poet, John Clare] was publishing in the 1820s but a child in the early 1800s, I rather had him in mind for Jim as somebody who was seeing the world in the same sort of way […] paying attention to the little things in nature, and feeling a sort of kinship with the natural world that we of course want to put an environmental spin on these days, but [at] the beginning of the 1800s was a new and important thing, a romantic preoccupation. (Cathcart)Motion’s allusion to Wild Sargasso Sea discursively appropriates Rhys’s feminist and postcolonial reimagination of Rochester’s creole wife, to validate his portrayal of Long John Silver’s wife, the “woman of colour.” As Christian Moraru has shown, this rewriting of race is part of a book industry trend in contemporary American adaptations of nineteenth-century texts. Interviews position readers of Silver to receive the novel in terms of increased moral complexity, sharing its awareness of the evils of slavery and violence silenced in prior adaptations.Two streams of influence [come] out of Treasure Island […] one is Pirates of the Caribbean and all that jolly jape type stuff, pirates who are essentially comic [or pantomime] characters […] And the other stream, which is the other face of Long John Silver in the original is a real menace […] What we are talking about is Somalia. Piracy is essentially a profoundly serious and repellent thing […]. (Cathcart)Motion’s transformation of Treasure Island, thus, improves on Stevenson by taking some of the menace that is “latent in the original”, yet downplayed by the genre reinvented as “jolly jape” or “gorefest.” In contrast, Silver is “a book about serious things” (Cathcart), about “greed and imperialism” and “how to be a modern person,” ideologically reconstructed as “philosophical history” by a consummate man of letters (Darragh).ConclusionWhen iconic literary brands are reimagined across media, genres and modes, creative professionals frequently need to balance various affective and commercial investments in the precursor text or property. Updatings of classic texts require interpretation and the negotiation of subtle changes in values that have occurred since the creation of the “original.” Producers in risk-averse industries such as screen and publishing media practice a certain pragmatism to ensure that fans’ nostalgia for a popular brand is not too violently scandalised, while taking care to reproduce currently popular technologies and generic conventions in the interest of maximising audience. As my analysis shows, promotional circuits associated with “quality” fiction and cinema mirror the commercial logics associated with less valorised genres. Promotional paratexts reveal transformations of content that position audiences to receive them as creative innovations, superior in many senses to their literary precursors due to the distinctive expertise of creative professionals. Paying lip-service the sophisticated reading practices of contemporary fans of both cinema and literary fiction, their discourse shows the conflicting impulses to homage, critique, originality, and recruitment of audiences.ReferencesBalio, Tino. Hollywood in the New Millennium. London: Palgrave Macmillan/British Film Institute, 2013.Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997.Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987. Burke, Liam. The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood's Leading Genre. Jackson, MS: UP of Mississippi, 2015. Cathcart, Michael (Interviewer). Andrew Motion's Silver: Return to Treasure Island. 2013. Transcript of Radio Interview. Prod. Kate Evans. 26 Jan. 2013. 10 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/booksplus/silver/4293244#transcript›.Darragh, Sarah. "In Conversation with Andrew Motion." NATE Classroom 17 (2012): 27–30.Genette, Gérard. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 1997. ———. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. Gray, Jonathan. Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York UP, 2010.Hills, Matt. "Rebranding Dr Who and Reimagining Sherlock: 'Quality' Television as 'Makeover TV Drama'." International Journal of Cultural Studies 18.3 (2015): 317–31.Johnson, Derek. Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries. Postmillennial Pop. New York: New York UP, 2013.Mars-Jones, Adam. "A Thin Slice of Cake." The Guardian, 16 Feb. 2003. 5 Oct. 2015 ‹http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/16/andrewmotion.fiction›.McBride, Joseph. Steven Spielberg: A Biography. 3rd ed. London: Faber & Faber, 2012.Mittell, Jason. Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. New York: New York UP, 2015.Moraru, Christian. Rewriting: Postmodern Narrative and Cultural Critique in the Age of Cloning. Herndon, VA: State U of New York P, 2001. Motion, Andrew. Silver: Return to Treasure Island. London: Jonathan Cape, 2012.Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Paramount/Columbia Pictures, 1981.Wolf, Maryanne, and Mirit Barzillai. "The Importance of Deep Reading." Educational Leadership. March (2009): 32–36.Wordsworth, William. The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem. London: Edward Moxon, 1850.