Posted on 02/02/2016 11:15:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won six back-to-back coin tosses against opponent Bernie Sander's camp at a half-dozen Iowa precincts where voting results were too close to call Tuesday morning — a mathematical feat that raised eyebrows and a few questions.
The 1-in-64 odds of Clinton successfully winning six coin flips across Polk, Jasper, Cedar and Johnson counties during a deadlocked Iowa caucus prompted confusion and concern from political experts and social media users.
"It is curious," said Dr. David Bridsell, Dean of the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College. "You don't want the awarding of delegates to come down to heads or tails."
"It's nice to know that America is a developed nation and we decid our next President with a coin toss," Tweeted Nick Zaxowski, echoing the sentiments of many others on social media.
In Des Moines, a coin landed tails up at the Weeks Middle School gymnasium following a split.
"That's how it works," one voter sporting Sanders stickers said, referring to the rules set forth by the Iowa Democratic Party, which allows a coin toss in the case of a tie. "It was very, very close. Remember this is a caucus."
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Doesn't matter. They could have taken place 100 years apart on different parts of the earth. Same odds: 2^6 = 2 x2 x2 x2 x2 x2 = 64 (63 to 1)
Contract with Satan??
Or did you mean in terms of her possibly cheating?
I wouldn’t say it’s miraculous, but definitely very unlikely. Suspiciously unlikely. That Hillary, she has the darndest luck.
Yes...cheating.
Then that leaves it with a 1 in 64 possibility.
Imagine asking someone to pick a number between 1 and 64...63 times! and them STILL not guessing it.
But...who chose the coin in each precinct?
If I were Hillary (...sorry, I just threw up...) I’d assign heads for 3 precincts and tails for the other 3.
But, what if The Bern got to pick 3 of the 6 precincts? Or even all 6? In the case of the latter, The Bern would have lost at a clip of 63:1 and he’d be called Bad Luck Bernie starting NOW. Maybe even if we consider the former.
This inside-baseball info is being avoided, IMO.
I think there is more concern with the missing “ballots” in several Iowa precincts.
Almost as lucky as her 1994 initial $1,000 investment had generated nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after ten months.
“The 1-in-64 odds of Clinton successfully winning six coin flips...”
Odds aren’t really cumulative like that. In each and every coin flip, Clinton had a 50% chance to win, no matter how many she won previously.
Six out of six.....
Maybe she should take up golf...She would give Kim Jong Il a good game and he had 18 hole-in-ones the first time he played...
Better yet (in terms of making big bucks at the casino), imagine doubling down on an even money bet (heads/tails, odd/even, etc) until you ultimately hit it.
Say, you have money to cover 6 spins of the roulette wheel with an initial wager of $1000 on Red. ie, bet 1000, lose, bet $2,000, lose, bet $4000, lose, bet $8,000, lose again, bet $16,000, yet again, bet $32,000. (total $63,000)
Now the ONLY way you could lose in 6 spins of the wheel (betting Red each time) is if Black comes out 6 straight times in a row! A 1 in 64 (63 to 1) unlikelihood.
However, in the real world most if not all wheels have a single and a double green zero on them to throw those tremendous odds off somewhat. I’m not sure if all casinos rule it a “push” or not. I think some may take only half your bet if one or the other green zero comes out. Also, in the long run, even if there weren’t the green zeros, you would simply break even. But you would almost certainly be way ahead of the game before that happens.
It was not miraculous. A perfectly normal occurance. The daily snooze sensationalizes everything.
Odds aren't really cumulative like that. In each and every coin flip, Clinton had a 50% chance to win, no matter how many she won previously.
Yes, but all in all, 6 straight 50-50 chances coming out in one's favor is still 1 in 64.
You can count on these things when your husband is Beelzabubba.
What are the odds of SIX ties?
To use your analogy, we don’t really know if Hillary was the only one betting 6X on red.
Were they independent tosses, in the sense that they were done with separate coins by separate people in the separate counties, with witnesses from both groups? Of did the toss(es) purportedly get done in one place, with no one looking?
The latter is hard to believe, so your explanation is the most likely.
But each of the 6 flips came out in her favor. That’s all that matters. The odds of that are 1 in 64 (63 to 1).
Or were you attempting to eliminate any potential supernatural powers she may possess? :)
She is from Chicago.
And it’s not gambling if the fix is in.
Odds-is-Odds, on that we agree.
I’d rather think that many are making “too much” of the coin flips. It can happen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.