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Re: probability question about the dice game
Posted:
Feb 15, 2013 3:03 PM
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On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:34:12 -0800 (PST), pepstein5@gmail.com wrote:
>On Friday, February 15, 2013 3:22:52 PM UTC, David C. Ullrich wrote:
> There are 505 equally likely cases leading to a win and 791
>>
>> equally likely cases leading to a loss. That makes the odds of
>>
>> winning precisely 505 to 795.
>>
>
>David, this is the mistake of yours that I was referring to. Correct would be "That makes the odds of winning precisely 791 to 505". (795 instead of 791 is a typo here(.
>
>So this was a mistake of yours.
Unless you're simply wrong about what the correct usage is.
Let's try wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odds
"The odds in favor of an event or a proposition are the ratio of the
probability that an event will happen to the probability that it will
not happen. For example, the odds that a randomly chosen day of the
week is a Sunday are one to six, which is sometimes written 1:6.
'Odds' are an expression of relative probabilities. Often 'odds' are
quoted as odds against, rather than as odds in favor of, because of
the possibility of confusion of the latter with the fractional
probability of an event occurring. "
>
>I thought the cause of your mistake was confusion on your part between X/(X+Y) and Y/(X + Y).
You _said_ that I _said_ something about these fractions. I did not.
If you think the reason for an error is whatever the _correct_
usage is "I think the reason for this error is...", not "you said"
followed by something I didn't say.
>
>But clearly your mistake lies somewhere else since you're complaining so much.
>
>Paul Epstein
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