Merged All things Trump + Russia

[NoahFence]

If that was true then the bookies wouldn't make anywhere nearly as much money.

Or casinos, for that matter.

Repeat customers is where they make the big bucks. Not much learning there.

I hit the Super in the Preakness.

It happens!

 

[Modified]

I didn't say the house wouldn't always win. That's what payout odds ensure.

The probability of horse 1 winning is how the payout is calculated if horse 1 wins. Highly likely to win, payout is lower; highly unlikely to win, the payout is bigger.

Not really. Casinos and bookies don't care about the probability of horse 1 winning, they only care about how people have bet or how they will bet on horse 1 winning.

 

[dudalb]

Didn't that site give him 30%? That's not "surely losing", that's "probably losing", and those are very different things, though most people, I have to say, do not understand numbers.

God, you think that anybody who played D and D would know about percentages.....and that the lesser percentage chance sometimes wins.

 

[skyeagle409]

Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/...h-of-39-states-threatens-future-u-s-elections

According to this, Obama used the Red Phone to tell Kremlin to stop meddling in the election. Putin keeps denying.

Whenever the Russians deny they were involved, that's proof enough they were.

 

[quadraginta]

I didn't say the house wouldn't always win. That's what payout odds ensure.

The probability of horse 1 winning is how the payout is calculated if horse 1 wins. Highly likely to win, payout is lower; highly unlikely to win, the payout is bigger.

I think you missed the point I was making.

You spoke of people learning about probability as a consequence of going to the race track.

I was pointing out that such is more often not the case, even with repeated visits.

The experience of betting doesn't seem to be a cure for not understanding probability. Not a very good cure, at least.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I do a lot with probabilities, and my usual approach is that I don't consider anything over 15% to be surprising. The analogy is if I had a 6 sided die, marked with one 1 and the rest 2s. Would I be surprised if I rolled a 1? Not really.

Otoh, if it is a 20 sided die marked with one 1, I would be surprised if the 1 came up. It's not impossible,of course, but so unlikely they you are surprised when it happens in a single roll (of course, if you roll it a lot, it will come up; it would not be surprising to see it once if you roll 4 times (20% chance)

Really? I wouldn't be surprised if a 1000-sided die came up with 1.

I wouldn't be surprised to find a 1 on a regular 20 sided die, with each side marked with a different number. I might be slightly "surprised" if I rolled a 1 when all the other sides were marked with a 20. It's the difference between a uniform distribution and a highly skewed distribution. In a uniform distribution, each value has an equal chance of occurring (a normal 20d). In the second scenario, 1 has a 5% chance of occurring where 20 has a 95% chance of occurring. The odds are strongly in favor of rolling a 20, thus getting a 1 on the first and only roll would be considered unlikely enough to merit attention. Maybe not "surprise" depending on how you interpret that, but certainly noteworthy.

In general, I agree with pgwenthold's baseline. I usually round it to around 20%, rather than 1/6, but same principle. If something with a 20% chance of occurring actually happens, I'm not at all surprised. If it's much less than that, I may be surprised depending on circumstances. In particular, my "surprise" level reduces as the number of possible outcomes increases. So if there are 100 possible different outcomes, then I'm not necessarily going to be surprised by any of them. If there's only a couple of outcomes possible, then I might be surprised if a very unlikely one occurs. It would still have been considers in the range of outcomes, and in calculations of value at risk or outlier scenarios... but it wouldn't fall within the "expected" range. Generally, I'm looking an 80% range around the mean for expected, and a 90% range around the mean for "plausible".

 

[Emily's Cat]

You know, if Russia's intent is to sow discord and weaken democracy as a whole, they're doing an amazingly good job of it.

 

[quadraginta]

I wouldn't be surprised to find a 1 on a regular 20 sided die, with each side marked with a different number. I might be slightly "surprised" if I rolled a 1 when all the other sides were marked with a 20. It's the difference between a uniform distribution and a highly skewed distribution. In a uniform distribution, each value has an equal chance of occurring (a normal 20d). In the second scenario, 1 has a 5% chance of occurring where 20 has a 95% chance of occurring. The odds are strongly in favor of rolling a 20, thus getting a 1 on the first and only roll would be considered unlikely enough to merit attention. Maybe not "surprise" depending on how you interpret that, but certainly noteworthy.

<snip>

In both cases the odds of getting a one on the first role are identical. What is on the others sides is irrelevant to that one thing. The other sides are just a distraction. Only how many other sides there are is relevant.

 

[Emily's Cat]

In both cases the odds of getting a one on the first role are identical. What is on the others sides is irrelevant to that one thing. The other sides are just a distraction. Only how many other sides there are is relevant.

Depends on the question and the number of options. The odds of getting a one are the same. The odds of getting a 20 are quite a bit different. It's a matter of clearly defining the question.

In this case, we're talking about the odds of Trump or Clinton winning - there are only two outcomes. So the lower the odds of Trump, the higher the odds of Clinton by definition. In that sort of a scenario, the lower the odds of Trump winning, the more "surprising" it is if he actually does win - the odds are not in his favor. It's not impossible, but it is unlikely. The line for what constitutes "plausible" is always squishy, and subject to personal interpretation.

If, however, we were talking about the Primaries, where there were several contenders, then even if Trump's probability of winning was low, it wasn't necessarily low relative to the odds of any other contender winning. There odds are closer to uniform. In that case, it wouldn't be surprising.

I don't actually know how many contenders there were in the primaries, so I'm making this up

Consider - if there were 5 contenders in the primary, with roughly equal odds of winning, then Trump has a 20% chance of winning. But his relative chance of winning is equal to that of any other contender. So his winning isn't a "surprise". It's no more or less likely to occur than it is for any other outcome.

Fast forward to the final election. If Trump is listed with a 20% chance of winning, then Clinton has an 80% chance of winning. Clinton's chances would then be 4 times as likely as Trump's. In that case, the relative chances are far different than Clintons. In that scenario, Trump winning would be a "surprise".

In both cases, Trump has a 20% chance of winning. But his relative likelihood is dramatically different.

 

[jimbob]

It is a bit of a distraction from this, when they gave Trump more than a 1:4 chance of success.

If I tossed two coins and correctly called both, I would be slightly surprised, but not very.

If we want to discuss probabilities, then we should go over to Science and Technology

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not really. Casinos and bookies don't care about the probability of horse 1 winning, they only care about how people have bet or how they will bet on horse 1 winning.

Once again, you pedantic nitpickers, sheesh.

What difference does it make if they use the placement of bets or the predictions by the horse assessments? It's the same outcome, odds, payout coincide.

Goodness, my point was valid. You and quad need to not be so pedantic about the details. XYZ doesn't pay 3:1 because they pulled the number out of hat.

Though I see quad has another issue I'll be looking at next.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think you missed the point I was making.

You spoke of people learning about probability as a consequence of going to the race track.

I was pointing out that such is more often not the case, even with repeated visits.

The experience of betting doesn't seem to be a cure for not understanding probability. Not a very good cure, at least.

So your assumption is I meant go place a bet and hope it sinks in? Yeah...no.

Who said anything about the experience of betting. I was just talking about looking at how probability/odds work. The initial argument in this exchange was claiming 538 was wrong because the guy with 30% chance of winning won. In other words, he thought 30% equated to 0% because it was less than 50%. Obviously race horses win even when they have long shot odds of winning. That was my point.

I did not say go learn a lesson by betting on horses. And neither did I say how said betting odds were calculated. It makes zero sense that betting odds are not related to the probability of a horse winning.

Stop picking on me!

 

[jimbob]

Please stop the derail.

 

[skyeagle409]

You know, if Russia's intent is to sow discord and weaken democracy as a whole, they're doing an amazingly good job of it.

I agree, and the Russians have Trump as a partner. I believe the US will recover from the damage the Russians and Trump are causing, but how much more damage will Trump cause before he is impeached, resign or voted out of office.

 

[alfaniner]

I wonder what will happen when the Mexican wall will NOT be built, at least with Mexico money. What will he tell to the public?

"It'll be taken care of in two to three weeks. Believe me."

 

[Belz...]

I wouldn't be surprised to find a 1 on a regular 20 sided die, with each side marked with a different number. I might be slightly "surprised" if I rolled a 1 when all the other sides were marked with a 20. It's the difference between a uniform distribution and a highly skewed distribution. In a uniform distribution, each value has an equal chance of occurring (a normal 20d). In the second scenario, 1 has a 5% chance of occurring where 20 has a 95% chance of occurring. The odds are strongly in favor of rolling a 20, thus getting a 1 on the first and only roll would be considered unlikely enough to merit attention. Maybe not "surprise" depending on how you interpret that, but certainly noteworthy.

Absolutely not. The numbers written on the sides are irrelevant. The point is that each side has a 5% of turning up with each roll, regardless of what's written on them. Whether all other sides are 20s or whether they have different numbers doesn't change the fact that the 1 only has a 5% of occuring, and there's nothing surprising about an event that is 5% likely to occur.

Please stop the derail.

Oops. Yes, sorry.

 

[d4m10n]

Listening to Jeff Sessions on C-SPAN right now.

No idea how he is going to survive this, politically speaking.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Emily's Cat]

It is a bit of a distraction from this, when they gave Trump more than a 1:4 chance of success.

True, it was a bit of a detail into how statistics and probabilities work

If I tossed two coins and correctly called both, I would be slightly surprised, but not very.

If we want to discuss probabilities, then we should go over to Science and Technology

Meh, probably not necessary. I suspect it was a very short derail. But if it continues, I would concur with your suggestion

 

[Emily's Cat]

What difference does it make if they use the placement of bets or the predictions by the horse assessments? It's the same outcome, odds, payout coincide.

Well, no. It's not the same odds, hence not the same outcomes. One is based on the belief of the betters, the other is based on an objective assessment of skill. It's comparable to the stock market. The risk levels associated with stocks is based on the volumes of people buying/trading those stocks - it's a reflection of the market belief in the strength of that stock. It's not based on an objective assessment of the actual underlying risk of the investment based on the performance and decisions of the company. They are often closely correlated, but they aren't the same. That's part of why insider trading is such a big deal, and why there are arbitrage opportunities for someone with more knowledge of the company's decisions and future undertakings than the average investor has.

 

[Antonio Coceri]

Correct. Now you're getting it. See how easy maths is?
If I say Palermo has a 10% chance of beating Juventus, and they do, you wouldn't argue that i was wrong.

Or maybe you would. Your sig suggests that you are the arbiter of who is right and who is wrong. There's a 10% chance that you're right about that.

Excellent
We have just found out that pollsters aer never and can never be wrong by definition