The problem from an integrity perspective is that Shackleford is making basic statements about what he saw absent what most in the scientific or mathematical or gambling worlds would consider proper contextualizing. If you see a cut paper check with a notation "casino winnings," it has the same credibility and lack of context as (to take an example from Todd's poker world) those graphics during televised WSOP events that label players as having "$3,000,000 in WSOP winnings". Nowhere does it say how many events or what the net is, so the networks and the WSOP misrepresent reality by not contextualizing the figures.

Does Shackleford have an obligation to state the obvious? That's the question. Should he constantly be adding disclaimers for the naive that he only witnesses a subset of this and an other-controlled example of that? Well, Shackleford's entire expertise is supposed to be in the realm of math. So if he is posting subsets of results without posting disclaimers, he's basically decided to cast aside his role as math expert.

Obviously Shackleford is either boosting views or intimidated by modest coinage or in need of some of that coinage.

Let me put this in perspective. There are probably 300,000 individuals in this country who make a million dollars a year, every year. There are far fewer individuals who make 10K a year gambling every year. These are facts -- mathematical facts.

So why is a gambling site featuring somebody because they have a check from a casino for 100K or because they have a 100K chip? What is the rationale for featuring them versus featuring the far more rare individuals who actually beat the casinos? The answer, of course, is because Shackleford has decided that's what he wants to do.

And that leads us back to the question, why?

You know, it's not so much that Shackleford is boosting hokum that annoys me. It's that he's boosting it while pretending to be something and someone else.