Synopses & Reviews
An easy-to-read, fun look at some common probability traps and fallacies and how they can be used to put the odds in the reader's favor. Written by a math expert, who uses real-life examples that can be understood by general readers, Taking Chances: Winning with Probability shows how to make better betting decisions in such games of chance as: lotteries, football pools, dice, roulette, card games, tv game shows, horse racing, and betting with bookies. It will interest all those who are interested in gaining the extra advantage when it comes to winning the lottery, making money in the casino, winning the football pool, or backing the right horse.
Review
"The volume is ideally suited for readers with virtually no training in mathematics, but who are curious about how actually to assess the odds of things like winning a single game at lawn tennis or on which hands in poker one should raise...This is a book to ponder, savour, studyand give to your mathematically illiterate friends." The Times Higher Education Supplement
Review
"[An] impressively comprehensive new book on the wonders of probability." The Sunday Telegraph
Synopsis
Taking Chances presents an entertaining and fascinating exploration of probability, revealing traps and fallacies in the field. It describes and analyzes a remarkable variety of situations where chance plays a role, including football pools, the Lottery, TV games, sport cards, roulette, coins, and dice. The book guides the reader through common pitfalls, demonstrates how to make better informed decisions, and shows where the odds can be unexpectedly in your favor. This new edition has been fully updated, and includes information on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and The Weakest Link, plus a new chapter on Probability for Lawyers.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [366]-368) and index.
Synopsis
Taking Chances presents an entertaining and fascinating exploration of probability, revealing traps and fallacies in the field. It describes and analyzes a remarkable variety of situations where chance plays a role, including football pools, the Lottery, TV games, sport, cards, roulette, coins, and dice. The book guides the reader round common pitfalls, demonstrates how to make better informed decisions, and shows where the odds can be unexpectedly in your favor. This new edition has been fully updated, and includes information on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and "The Weakest Link", plus a new chapter on Probability for Lawyers.
About the Author
John Haigh is Reader in Statistics at the University of Sussex. His interest in probability was awakened by various card games, and he has made a particular study of lotteries, cards, and dice.
Table of Contents
1. What is probability?
2. Lotteries
3. Football Pools, Premium Bonds
4. One coin, many games
5. Dice
6. Games with few choices
7. Waiting, waiting, waiting
8. Let's play best of three
9. TV games
10. Casino games
11. Bookies, the Tote, spread betting
12. This sporting life
13. Lucky for some--miscellenea
14. Probability for lawyers
Appendix I: Counting
Appendix II: Probability
Appendix III: Averages and variability
Appendix IV: Goodness-of-fit tests
Appendix V: The Kelly strategy
Solutions to Test Yourself quizzes
Literature cited
Index