Ancestors

Written by Stuart Langridge on 2025-01-04 at 09:35

Maths people, help!

In "Scarne on Cards", John Scarne discusses the odds for a game. He says this:

"The chances are 12220 to 9880 in their favour. [These numbers are definitely correct -- sil] That is, the percentage in their favour is 10-1/123."

Where's he getting that percentage from? How's he doing the calculation? I can't end up at that number, so I must be doing something wrong...

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Written by Marcos Dione on 2025-01-04 at 10:19

@sil I can't even understand the notation. is that "ten against one a hundred twenty third"? They seem to have moved the comma three places on one side and only two on the other?

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Toot

Written by Stuart Langridge on 2025-01-04 at 10:42

@mdione you know what I do. Here’s a picture of the relevant section from the book. My assumption was that it meant ten and one one-hundred-and-twenty-thirds, that is, (10 + (1/123)), or approx 10.081%. But maybe I’m reading it wrong!

=> View attached media

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Descendants

Written by Marcos Dione on 2025-01-04 at 11:06

@sil or ten minus that? I'm not so savyy on math notation in English.

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Written by Stuart Langridge on 2025-01-04 at 11:44

@mdione it could mean that, but I think it's unlikely because then I'm really lost. The answer I get is about 10.58 which is at least ten point something; if the answer he's got is nine point something then we're way out in the woods :-)

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