Taking Chances: Winning with Probability [Paperback]

John Haigh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0198526636 | ISBN-13: 978-0198526636

Taking Chances presents an entertaining and fascinating exploration of probability, revealing traps and fallacies in the field. It describes and analyzes a remarkable variety of situations where chance plays a role, including football pools, the Lottery, TV games, sport, cards, roulette, coins, and dice. The book guides the reader round common pitfalls, demonstrates how to make better informed decisions, and shows where the odds can be unexpectedly in your favor. This new edition has been fully updated, and includes information on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and "The Weakest Link", plus a new chapter on Probability for Lawyers.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Most of us enjoy pleasant surprises and know that many of life's greatest rewards are obtained by taking chances. This is true whether we are playing the lottery or deciding whether or not to buy flowers when we are unsure if it might be our girlfriend's birthday. So, if you enjoy taking chances and winning--and it's a safe bet that you do--this book helps you do so in a more intelligent way.

John Haigh is Reader in Mathematics at Sussex University, and his book covers a remarkably large number of topics. He tells you how to take chances playing the football pools and about the role of chance in sports such as tennis, golf, and soccer. What points in tennis are most important? If a soccer player gets a yellow card in 10 percent of games and is suspended for one game whenever he has accumulated two yellow cards, how often is he suspended? What is the chance that a team that scores the first goal goes on to win? He also writes about casino games, bridge, and Monopoly, explaining why orange is the best color of Monopoly property to own.

The book is practical rather than theoretical. It is written for anyone with a curious mind, aged perhaps 16 and up. It is not a textbook, but introduces concepts, such as random walk and game theory, that are familiar to professional mathematicians. There are technical appendices and test-yourself quizzes for readers who want to explore more. A bonus is advice on the lottery. However, with typical vividness, he cautions that if the lottery had begun with the ancient druids, and your ancestors had bought 50 tickets every week for the last 5000 years, then by now your family could expect to have won the jackpot just once! --Richard Weber, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

`Review from previous edition 'the volume is ideally suited for readers with virtually no training in mathematics, but who are curious about how actually to assess the odds of things like winning a single game at lawn tennis or on which hands in poker one should raise . . . This is a book to ponder, savour, study - and give to your mathematically illiterate friends'' The Times Higher Education Supplement

`'(an) impressively comprehensive new book on the wonders of probability'' The Sunday Telegraph

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198526636
• ISBN-13: 978-0198526636
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best broad introduction to probability for real world games, May 27, 2007

By 

David J. Aldous "gentleman scholar" (Alameda, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taking Chances: Winning with Probability (Paperback)

There are many textbooks on college-level mathematical probability, but a smaller number of what I call "textbooks lite" aimed at a reader who is willing to work to learn some interesting parts of a subject. This wonderful book teaches the basic calculations in mathematical probability, but with a combination of breadth and concreteness unrivaled by any other book I know. The book consists of short sections, each giving verbal discussion of problems involving probability, games of chance and related material, and deriving solutions using only arithmetic and occasional elementary combinatorics and algebra. It covers an impressive breadth of topics: lotteries, dice and card games, casino games, TV show games, racetrack betting, some game theory (Prisoners Dilemma, Hawk-Dove games, Male-Female reproductive strategies), combined with the basic laws of probability and the familiar birthday and coupon collector's problems. Part of the content is distinctly British rather than American (cricket and snooker; premium bonds; the particular TV shows). In addition to familiar types of elementary probability calculations such as the craps example, there are more elaborate stories and calculations involving strategies as games progress. I particularly like the chapter giving a gentle yet entertaining introduction to two-person game theory.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loose thinking can cost money..., December 19, 2004

By 

Franco Arda (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taking Chances: Winning with Probability (Paperback)

While the book is mainly written on probability in games, which has already been covered in many books, the author coveres the basics of probability and coin tossing very nicely. He also covers the theory of dices thoroughly and approaches "Games with few choices" (Game Theory) with great enthusiasm. Finally the chapter "Probability for Lawyers" with it's terms such as the prosecutors fallacy and the defence attorne's fallacy are a must read for every person interested in the fascinating subject of probabiliy. PS: second edition covers now Bayes's theorem (previous readers criticised the author of missing this important theory in the first issue)

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You bet, June 27, 2000

By 

Steve Knight - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taking Chances: Winning with Probability (Hardcover)

An excellent account of probability theory. Whilst definitely geared towards gambling it also sheds new light on some fundamental probability topics.

The text sometimes does get a little numerical - at the expense of the theoretical - but this is not necessarily a bad thing.

The only question I have about the book is why is there no mention of Bayes? Surely a fundamental contributor to probability theory.