What are the odds?
June 2006
This Month’s query is:
What are the odds of calling the Win, Place, and Show, exactly?
This is a pretty easy calculation with a big total! Unfortunately, the total shrinks due to player non-participation. If all 18 S.B.P.T. players would ever all show up for the same tournament, the odds would be close to 5000 to 1, but since 12 to 13 players is all we can ever muster up at the same time, here is the result:
We are going to use 13 players as our standard for this wager.
For a player to finish third as predicted (barring any funny business), there is a 1 in 13 chance.
For the next player that is predicted to finish second, to do so, there is a 1 in 12 shot.
Then of course there would be a 1 in 11 chance for the predicted player to capture the title.
Since these are really fractions that we multiply, but all the 1’s cancel each other out… the real calculation is 13 X 12 X 11 =’s a 1716 to 1 shot.
I'll take the wager at 1500 to 1 with a max bet of one measly cent... sorry but this is only for fun!
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