The Never-Ending Quest for Power Laws

Here's the abstract for a paper just posted on the arXiv. Its main conclusion seems to be the presence of a power law distribution. Sigh... there are so many ways for such things to occur by accident. It's ok for theoretical work to start with such an observation, but a start is what it should be---not the main result! Maybe the actual contents of the paper are better, but with this abstract, I'm not going to even bother to look.

By the way, I love the last sentence in the abstract.


\Paper: physics/0602165
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 06:23:27 GMT (40kb)

Title: Power-law distribution in Japanese racetrack betting
Authors: Takashi Ichinomiya
Comments: to be published in Physica A
Subj-class: Physics and Society
\ Gambling is one of the basic economic activities that humans indulge in. An investigation of gambling activities provides deep insights into the economic actions of people and sheds lights on the study of econophysics. In this paper we present an analysis of the distribution of the final odds of the races organized by the Japan Racing Association. The distribution of the final odds $P_o(x)$ indicates a clear power law $P_o(x)\propto 1/x$, where $x$ represents the final odds. This power law can be explained on the basis of the assumption that that every bettor bets his money on the horse that appears to be the strongest in a race.
\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/physics/0602165 , 40kb)