{"id":5051,"date":"2017-01-31T09:32:19","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T17:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamblingwithanedge.com\/?p=5051"},"modified":"2017-01-31T09:32:19","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T17:32:19","slug":"which-is-more-believable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/which-is-more-believable\/","title":{"rendered":"Which is More Believable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently read the book Fluke<\/em><\/strong> by Joseph Mazur. This book looks at some improbably real \u201ccoincidences\u201d and helps us understand the math behind what happened.<\/p>\n

Like somebody who writes that she hit a royal flush on the first hand she played two days in a row and wants to know, \u201cWhat are the odds on that?\u201d Mazur correctly points out that there\u2019s a huge difference between looking at how often that happens to someone anywhere and how likely it was to happen to Mary Smith on December 12 and 13 in 2015? Hugely different problems and Mazur does well to explain that.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever been amazed by that day in 2004 when you ran into somebody you hadn\u2019t seen in 30 years — and you and he both just happened to be in a small caf\u00e9 in Turkey at the same time — then this book will help you understand that it wasn\u2019t as flukish as you thought.<\/p>\n

One case Mazur covers, however, is Joan Ginther, who won the Texas lottery at least four times over 18 years. Although I accept that Mazur\u2019s mathematical talents in this area are far beyond mine, this is a situation that, in my opinion, Mazur misanalyzes.<\/p>\n

Mazur goes through the probability of anybody picking a winning lottery number — and he focuses on the type where you pick six numbers. He goes through the math of winning several times, the number of people playing, the number of lotteries there are in the United States, and concludes that it\u2019s not that unrealistic to expect someone winning four or more times.<\/p>\n

He also duly notes that the actual winner, Joan Ginther, has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University and possibly figured out some way to boost the odds in her favor. He mentions this and then ignores it.<\/p>\n

I think Ginther\u2019s background and intelligence are the crux of the matter.<\/p>\n

Without precisely ranking Stanford among the elite universities of the world, I\u2019m going to posit without proof that it\u2019s on that list somewhere and that Ph.D.s in mathematics from that university typically have genius-level intelligence with a great facility at numbers.<\/p>\n

Further, according to reports in several publications, Ginther\u2019s wins weren\u2019t on lottery tickets where you pick six numbers. Ginther\u2019s wins were on scratchers, which is totally different animal. On a scratcher, some numbers on a grid are already exposed when you buy the ticket. It\u2019s very possible that Ginther used this pre-printed information to decide which lottery tickets to buy. If so, the odds against her were significantly different than what they would be for someone who picked the cards blindly.<\/p>\n

This type of advantage was discussed by Mohan Srivastava in https:\/\/www.wired.com\/2011\/01\/ff_lottery\/<\/a>. \u00a0When Srivastava was a guest on our Gambling with an Edge<\/em><\/strong> radio show, he said he didn\u2019t know the details of Ginther\u2019s wins, but based on the analysis by a journalist named Peter Mucha, Srivastava speculated that Ginther used methods related to ticket distribution to win. (Listen here<\/a>) If you like that podcast, Srivastava was on our show earlier (found here<\/a>) where he went more into the basics of beating the lottery, but only mentioned the Joan Ginther case in passing.<\/p>\n

Mathematicians (and video poker players, for that matter) tend to be better than average at \u201cpattern recognition.\u201d I can\u2019t quantify this, but it does seem to lend more credence to the possibility that perhaps Ginther noticed and exploited certain patterns. Srivastava\u2019s personal success was certainly based on this.<\/p>\n

So, who\u2019s right? Ginther isn\u2019t talking, although she is said to live in Las Vegas and we\u2019d love to have her on the show.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at some assumptions and do a sort of Occam\u2019s Razor analysis:<\/p>\n

Mazur:\u00a0 Pick 6 lotteries are played in a lot of places and have been for a long time. Getting four big wins could happen once by chance to anyone, and it just happened to be Joan Ginther.<\/p>\n

Srivastava:\u00a0 The lotteries Ginther won were not Pick 6, but had other characteristics. It\u2019s possible to analyze those characteristics to gain an edge — if you\u2019re smart enough and dedicated enough. A Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University is likely smart enough and dedicated enough to succeed. Although Ginther\u2019s success had a luck element to it, assuming she was a skilled gambler makes a lot more sense than assuming she just got lucky.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, Srivastava\u2019s argument makes more sense. What do you believe?<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently read the book Fluke by Joseph Mazur. This book looks at some improbably real \u201ccoincidences\u201d and helps us understand the math behind what happened. Like somebody who writes that she hit a royal flush on the first hand she played two days in a row and wants to know, \u201cWhat are the odds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[29,2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhich is More Believable? - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/which-is-more-believable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Which is More Believable? - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I recently read the book Fluke by Joseph Mazur. This book looks at some improbably real \u201ccoincidences\u201d and helps us understand the math behind what happened. Like somebody who writes that she hit a royal flush on the first hand she played two days in a row and wants to know, \u201cWhat are the odds […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/which-is-more-believable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lasvegasadvisor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-31T17:32:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\",\"name\":\"Gambling With An Edge\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/which-is-more-believable\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/which-is-more-believable\/\",\"name\":\"Which is More Believable? - Gambling With An Edge\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-31T17:32:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-31T17:32:19+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#\/schema\/person\/c27a91b6679cdf3c71f73bd2bdc844c7\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/which-is-more-believable\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/which-is-more-believable\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/which-is-more-believable\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Which is More Believable?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#\/schema\/person\/c27a91b6679cdf3c71f73bd2bdc844c7\",\"name\":\"Bob Dancer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/GWAEDancerVP-e1466809008667.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/GWAEDancerVP-e1466809008667.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Bob Dancer\"},\"description\":\"Video Poker Expert\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/author\/bob-dancer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5051"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5052,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5051\/revisions\/5052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}