Taking Chances: Winning with Probability

Most of us enjoy pleasant surprises and know that many of life's greatest rewards are obtained by taking chances. This is true whether we are playing the National Lottery or deciding whether or not to buy flowers when we are unsure if it might be our girlfriend's birthday. So if you enjoy taking chances, and winning--and it's a safe bet that you do--this book helps you do so in a more intelligent way.

John Haigh is Reader in Mathematics at Sussex University and his book covers a remarkably large number of topics. He tells you how to take chances playing the football pools and about the role of chance in sports such as tennis, golf, cricket and soccer. What points in tennis are most important? If a footballer gets a yellow card in 10 percent of games and is suspended for one game whenever he has accumulated two yellow cards, how often is he suspended? What is the chance that a team that scores the first goal goes on to win? He also writes about casino games, bridge and Monopoly, explaining why orange is the best colour of Monopoly property to own.

The book is practical rather than theoretical. It is written for anyone with a curious mind, aged perhaps 16 and up. It is not a textbook, but introduces concepts, such as random walk and game theory, that are familiar to professional mathematicians. There are technical appendices and test-yourself-quizzes for readers who want to explore more. A bonus is advice on the National Lotteries. Haig will help you choose UK National Lottery numbers that are more likely to give you a large prize. However, with typical vividness, he cautions that if the Lottery had begun with the ancient druids, and your ancestors had bought 50 tickets every week for the last 5000 years, then by now your family could expect to have won the jackpot just once! --Richard Weber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

What are the odds against winning the Lottery, making money in a casino, or backing the right horse? Every day, people make judgements on these matters and face other decisions that rest on their understanding of probability: buying insurance, following medical advice, carrying an umbrella. Yet many of us have a frightening ignorance of how probability works. Taking Chances presents an entertaining and fascinating exploration of probability, revealing traps and fallacies in the field. It describes and analyses 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 favour. 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.
Taking Chances: Winning with Probability