[ALawPoker]

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I don't recall how Harrington worded it, but the bottom line was that a pro has 3-4 times the EV of the average player, which with a top heavy payout correlates to a 3-4 times better chance of winning the tournament.

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Huh? With a top heavy payout wouldn't 3-4 times EV mean something less than 3-4 chance to win?

What Harrington was probably saying was that the more top heavy the payout is, the more rewarding it is to a player's edge.

I think you're right that a top pro is probably no better than 1-1000 or 1-2000 or so, I don't really know. But this is almost entirely unrelated to politics betting. In politics betting there is a known field, and if Paul's numbers were artificially inflated, that would mean someone else's numbers are artificially deflated, and profit can be made. Someone with the right information will return the lines to where they should be. Betting on the wsop is just a gimmick thing for the book to make money off people willing to throw it away. If 100 fan boys put thousands of dollars on their hero Phil Hellmuth to make him 1/30, the books don't allow an option to bet the field at 29/30. If they did, you'd see smart money hit the field and the lines return to where they should be.