Journalism? Statistics? Nonsense...

estebanrey · 18 May 2012 at 15:54

opps wrong thread!

platinum87 · 18 May 2012 at 17:11

Hikari Kisugi said:
Is it a random draw?

First sensible person.

My apologies if someone said it earlier.

If its not a random draw these odds are not valid

estebanrey · 18 May 2012 at 17:13

platinum87 said:
First sensible person.

My apologies if someone said it earlier.

If its not a random draw these odds are not valid

Someone who doesn't read the link in the OP is sensible? It clearly says the draw is random in the report.

platinum87 · 18 May 2012 at 17:20

estebanrey said:
Someone who doesn't read the link in the OP is sensible? It clearly says the draw is random in the report.

Cant read every link tbh.

But then its even worse, why is that news? i'd be ok with it if he actually won by a vote.

I'm glad i didnt read the link, i dont think i can handle that much BS every day.

muon · 18 May 2012 at 17:25

The Halk said:
BBC article - MP defies 58,000/1 odds in ballot

Estimated at 58K? Who by? A seven year old with a crayon? 240 entered the draw this year, oh and what a coincidence 240 squared is 57,600. Rounding takes care of the rest.

So they're saying that the odds of an MP being selected twice are approx 58K to 1.

The odds are actually 240 to 1. The odds of rolling the same number twice on a six sided dice are 1 in 6, not 1 in 36.

Anyone with no grasp of basic statistics needs to go back to school.

Happens on lot's of other things as well. Someone winning the lottery twice etc.

They ignore that the first outcome has 100% probability of occurring when you don't predefine the selection.

However, the MP did personally defy those odds. As a news event it is a non story, as who the person is doesn't matter.

estebanrey · 18 May 2012 at 17:55

anyon said:
Happens on lot's of other things as well. Someone winning the lottery twice etc.

Lottery isn't a good example though because there isn't a 100% chance someone will will the lottery every week (if it was there wouldn't be roll overs).

Someone winning a raffle twice would be a better one.

touch · 18 May 2012 at 18:05

estebanrey said:
Lottery isn't a good example though because there isn't a 100% chance someone will will the lottery every week (if it was there wouldn't be roll overs).

Take a single lottery draw as an example then.
The odds that people quote are always your own individual chance of winning. Nobody cares about the chance of any random person winning.

SexyGreyFox · 18 May 2012 at 18:15

A few years ago I was asked if I would like to call the Bingo in a club of about 200 people and the same woman won all 5 full houses on the trot.
What were the odds of that?

estebanrey · 18 May 2012 at 18:39

Dimple said:
A few years ago I was asked if I would like to call the Bingo in a club of about 200 people and the same woman won all 5 full houses on the trot.
What were the odds of that?

Depends on how many games you played? And do you what the chances that someone would win 5 in a row, or the odds that women in particular would win 5 in a row.

After the lady won her first game, the chances of her winning the next 4 on the spin would be 1 in 1.6 billion (presuming the other 199 players are all playing and concentrating obviously). It's not that simple though as due to the nature of Bingo it's possible two people can get a full house at the same time at which point you'd need to know her reaction time compared to the others but that would be going a bit too far in the name of accuracy to start considering the mathematics behind that.

SexyGreyFox · 18 May 2012 at 19:00

estebanrey said:
Depends on how many games you played? And do you what the chances that someone would win 5 in a row, or the odds that women in particular would win 5 in a row.

There were 5 full straight houses and she won all of them.
Punters usually buy tickets for all the games BUT some people may have 1 ticket where others may have 6 for each house.
Of course some of the Club members weren't very happy and thought I had set it up with her which is a bit impossible because the machine is a random number generator and you can visually see the numbers coming up.

The Halk · 18 May 2012 at 19:31

estebanrey said:
No the odds are 1 IN 240, or 239 TO 1. So he still needs to go back to school

I rounded up. The 58K is rounded up too.