As a side note to the Take It or Leave It post, there is a rule in gameshows* that doing things is always better than pretending to do things. There are exceptions of course. Knightmare would have been nigh on impossible to make if everything had to be real, but the concept of a blindfolded kid having to follow precise instructions holds.
Take It or Leave It had virtual safes in the first part of the game. Why? It would have been so much better if the contestants could open a physical safe and bank a bag of money, or have a (controlled!) explosion for the booby traps. No doubts then about it bring a fair game, and a pleasing tactile element to the game. It's not as though they couldn't use safes as the end game had a quite impressive display of six safes rising and falling through the floor of the set.
So why do things virtually when you could be actually doing it? Cost, laziness or a hatred for the viewer? If I want to make a safe explode virtually, there are any number of flash games on the Internet. To actually open a safe and have a small explosion go off, well, that would be something.
Just imagine Million Pound Drop with virtual money being moved on a computer screen, akin to the play along at home game. The show would have nothing going for it. It's just the having physical bundles of cash that gives he show a kick. It's not perfect by any means (the question difficulty is just like a trivia machine. Patronisingly easy then an impossible one you must guess at) but it is watchable at least.
*not really a rule but it should be.
Friday, 14 October 2011
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Take It or Leave It
I like gameshows a lot. I like looking at the maths behind decisions in games. I also like making up hypothetical situations and working out the best case scenario.
Take It or Leave It
In the UK, Take It or Leave It was broadcast on Challenge. It is not to be confused with the French version of Deal or No Deal called À prendre ou à laisser, which translates to Take it or Leave It. Anyway, a synopsis of the show can be found using the magic of Google.
The Assumption: Everyone playing knows the answers to all of the first ten questions that get asked.
The Scenario: You and your friend have succesfully answered the first 8 questions, and have banked a tasty £22,500. Only the £15,000 and £12,500 remain uncovered but also so do both booby traps. The question comes up "Who was the 13th undisputed FIDE world chess champion?" You are offered Bobby Fischer. Do you take it or leave it? Answer after the break...
Take It or Leave It
In the UK, Take It or Leave It was broadcast on Challenge. It is not to be confused with the French version of Deal or No Deal called À prendre ou à laisser, which translates to Take it or Leave It. Anyway, a synopsis of the show can be found using the magic of Google.
The Assumption: Everyone playing knows the answers to all of the first ten questions that get asked.
The Scenario: You and your friend have succesfully answered the first 8 questions, and have banked a tasty £22,500. Only the £15,000 and £12,500 remain uncovered but also so do both booby traps. The question comes up "Who was the 13th undisputed FIDE world chess champion?" You are offered Bobby Fischer. Do you take it or leave it? Answer after the break...
Monday, 10 October 2011
Customer Service
I have worked in customer service, for an internet poker company. I know is is vitally important to keep goodwill amongst the customers to reply to any emails promptly. Our target was to reply within a few minutes of when an email came in, certainly within the hour. If the question was such that we couldn't reply in that time, we would let the customer know as such. It would have been unthinkable if a simple question about the rules of one of our games, or the odds of a particular hand happening, went unanswered for over a week. It would have made our site look incredibly shady (bordering on a full-on scam), full of people who didn't have a clue about how the games worked, or most importantly not give a toss about the customers.
On a completely separate note, my emails to the Health Lottery about the payouts of the game remain unanswered, one of which is well over a week old now.
On a completely separate note, my emails to the Health Lottery about the payouts of the game remain unanswered, one of which is well over a week old now.
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Khan Academy
My current obsession is trying to complete every exercise to a proficient standard at Khan Academy - all 207 of them.
Khan Academy is one of the most important websites on the Internet, in my opinion. Just as the Wikimedia Foundation wants everyone to have access to free and reliable encyclopaedias, dictionaries etc, Sal Khan wants to teach the world how to do maths, general sciences and, well, everything.
Beyond GCSE maths I have very little formal maths training. I pretty much worked out what I needed to know for poker purposes, and used my own notation. In retrospect, I should have made the effort to learn the proper notation. I knew little calculus but lots about statistics and probability before starting this adventure. Now, I know more. Which is the whole point really.
Still, 190 out of 207 exercises completed, but only 20 out of 2615 tutorial videos watched while logged in. The quest continues
Khan Academy is one of the most important websites on the Internet, in my opinion. Just as the Wikimedia Foundation wants everyone to have access to free and reliable encyclopaedias, dictionaries etc, Sal Khan wants to teach the world how to do maths, general sciences and, well, everything.
Beyond GCSE maths I have very little formal maths training. I pretty much worked out what I needed to know for poker purposes, and used my own notation. In retrospect, I should have made the effort to learn the proper notation. I knew little calculus but lots about statistics and probability before starting this adventure. Now, I know more. Which is the whole point really.
Still, 190 out of 207 exercises completed, but only 20 out of 2615 tutorial videos watched while logged in. The quest continues
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Lotteries
Lotteries are, in EV terms, a bad gamble (usually). In terms of winning an obscenely large amount of money for a £1 or £2 outlay, however, there is nothing to compare. But which lottery gives the best return to the player, and which gives the most to charity?
To start with, a comparison between Lotto (the 1994 "original" draw, part of the National Lottery family of games) and The Health Lottery (the 2011 newcomer, promoted heavily by Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell group).
Lotto
Tickets cost £1.00. Choose 6 numbers from 49. 6 main numbers are drawn, plus 1 Bonus Ball number. Win a prize if you match 3 or more main numbers.
Match 3: 1 in 57, win £10
Match 4: 1 in 1,032, win £62*
Match 5: 1 in 55,491, win £1,518*
Match 5 + Bonus Ball: 1 in 2,330,636, win £101,987*
Match 6: 1 in 13,983,816: win £1,988,749*
Win any prize: 1 in 54
* prizes for each tier are allocated after all £10 wins are accounted for, and are a percentage of the remaining prizepool. Figures assume each number combination is bought once and exactly once, and there is no rollover or other special prize.
Health Lottery
Tickets cost £1.00. Choose 5 numbers from 50. 5 numbers are drawn. Win a prize if you match 3 or more main numbers.
Match 3: 1 in 214, win £50
Match 4: 1 in 9,900, win £500
Match 5: 1 in 2,118,760, win £100,000
Win any prize: 1 in 209
So if you buy 1 ticket a week, then it will be a little over a year between wins with Lotto, compared to 4 years between wins with Health Lottery.
Charity: 28% of the purchase price of a Lotto ticket goes to a good causes fund, compared to 20.3% of the purchase price of a Health Lottery ticket.
Payouts: 45% of the purchase price of a Lotto ticket is paid out in prizes during a normal draw. The Health Lottery is claiming that 57% of the purchase price of their ticket is paid out in prizes, however given the parameters of the game and the odds of winning (which are unintuitively placed on their website, and confirmed by combinatorial maths) just 33.4% is paid out in prizes. I have twice emailed The Health Lottery about exactly what the prize breakdowns and where the ticket price goes to are, yet despite the autoreply saying I should expect a reply by the following evening, have been waiting for 2 days and 9 days for a reply.
Summary: The Health Lottery gives away less to charity, and on an average draw (as worked out from the odds given on their website) gives less back to the players. What is more, it takes four times longer for the player to see any sort of return (on average). Add to this the frankly terrible customer support being offered by the Health Lottery and it's very hard to see why anyone would play it. It will be interesting to see how the Health Lottery plans to reconcile the 57% it claims gets paid out, with the 33% that actually gets paid out.
To start with, a comparison between Lotto (the 1994 "original" draw, part of the National Lottery family of games) and The Health Lottery (the 2011 newcomer, promoted heavily by Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell group).
Lotto
Tickets cost £1.00. Choose 6 numbers from 49. 6 main numbers are drawn, plus 1 Bonus Ball number. Win a prize if you match 3 or more main numbers.
Match 3: 1 in 57, win £10
Match 4: 1 in 1,032, win £62*
Match 5: 1 in 55,491, win £1,518*
Match 5 + Bonus Ball: 1 in 2,330,636, win £101,987*
Match 6: 1 in 13,983,816: win £1,988,749*
Win any prize: 1 in 54
* prizes for each tier are allocated after all £10 wins are accounted for, and are a percentage of the remaining prizepool. Figures assume each number combination is bought once and exactly once, and there is no rollover or other special prize.
Health Lottery
Tickets cost £1.00. Choose 5 numbers from 50. 5 numbers are drawn. Win a prize if you match 3 or more main numbers.
Match 3: 1 in 214, win £50
Match 4: 1 in 9,900, win £500
Match 5: 1 in 2,118,760, win £100,000
Win any prize: 1 in 209
So if you buy 1 ticket a week, then it will be a little over a year between wins with Lotto, compared to 4 years between wins with Health Lottery.
Charity: 28% of the purchase price of a Lotto ticket goes to a good causes fund, compared to 20.3% of the purchase price of a Health Lottery ticket.
Payouts: 45% of the purchase price of a Lotto ticket is paid out in prizes during a normal draw. The Health Lottery is claiming that 57% of the purchase price of their ticket is paid out in prizes, however given the parameters of the game and the odds of winning (which are unintuitively placed on their website, and confirmed by combinatorial maths) just 33.4% is paid out in prizes. I have twice emailed The Health Lottery about exactly what the prize breakdowns and where the ticket price goes to are, yet despite the autoreply saying I should expect a reply by the following evening, have been waiting for 2 days and 9 days for a reply.
Summary: The Health Lottery gives away less to charity, and on an average draw (as worked out from the odds given on their website) gives less back to the players. What is more, it takes four times longer for the player to see any sort of return (on average). Add to this the frankly terrible customer support being offered by the Health Lottery and it's very hard to see why anyone would play it. It will be interesting to see how the Health Lottery plans to reconcile the 57% it claims gets paid out, with the 33% that actually gets paid out.
Friday, 7 October 2011
Hello
Hello.
I just wanted a place to write about probability and gaming and stuff. This seemed the most logical place, especially as ranting about stuff in 140 characters on twitter is limiting.
I just wanted a place to write about probability and gaming and stuff. This seemed the most logical place, especially as ranting about stuff in 140 characters on twitter is limiting.
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