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To: gore3000
The above is absolutely wrong. It is the reason why so many gamblers lose their shirts. If the odds against winning the lottery are say 1 in 100,000,000 and you played it 99,999,999 times wihtout winning, the chances of winning on your next bet are still 1 in 100,000,000. Random events do not have a memory.

No, you are absolutely wrong. If you bet on the lottery on the next 100,000,000 plays, your odds of winning at least once are 0.9999999999.

You are talking a posteri about 1 chance while looking back at 99,999,999 failures; he is talking a priori looking forward at 100,000,000 chances. They are not the same situation as even the garden-variety, mathematically-challenged Freeper can tell.

I ask you, will you admit you talking about a different situation than the one he proposed?

1,824 posted on 06/25/2002 5:30:18 PM PDT by balrog666
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To: balrog666
You are talking a posteri about 1 chance while looking back at 99,999,999 failures; he is talking a priori looking forward at 100,000,000 chances. They are not the same situation as even the garden-variety, mathematically-challenged Freeper can tell.

Does not matter if one looks at it going forward or backward. Each time you buy a ticket, that ticket has a one in 100,000,000 chances of winning. Whether it is the first ticket you ever bought or the 100,000,000th ticket. Luck does not 'have' to change. Numbers do not 'have to' come up. As I said random events have no memory and it is those who ignore that simple fact and continue playing that have built all those huge hotels in Las Vegas. RWN said it was almost certain that a win would result. I say there is no such certainty in random events. There is a probability, but any time one plays a random game one must realize that it does not matter how many times one played and lost - the dice, the cards, the roulette wheel, the little balls in the lottery - have no memory so one starts with the same chances each time.

1,831 posted on 06/25/2002 6:46:36 PM PDT by gore3000
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