gambling, probability, and statistics: a biased, anecdotal,...
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Gambling, Probability, and Statistics:
a biased, anecdotal, historical account
Bill Sudderth
University of Minnesota
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X
X, the professor, always dreads
Cocktail party gatherings,
Having to divulge he teaches Statistics.
The nose of his interrogator usually wriggles,
Memories bubble in her green margarita.
A proxy here to regale
and even the score for old tortures.
J. Mills Dickey (1939-2008), statistician and poet
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History of Gambling: a Few Approximate Dates
3000 BCE in Mesopotamia: earliest known six-sided dice
3000 BCE in Egypt: anti-gambling laws
2000 BCE in China: keno played
1500 BCE in India: dice game in the Mahabharata
30 CE: casting of lots for Christ’s clothes in the Bible
Probability theory and mathematical statistics come much
later
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Cardano: the Gambling Scholar 1501-1576
Book on Games of Chance: 1st published 1663
Dover edition 2015
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Fermat-Pascal Correspondence 1654
Division of the Stakes
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Jacob Bernoulli 1654-1705
Law of Large Numbers
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Abraham de Moivre 1667-1754
Central Limit Theorem
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Louis Bachelier 1870-1946 (“father of math finance”)
Theorie de la Speculation 1900
“It is almost always gambling that enables one to form a fairly
clear idea of a manifestation of chance ... it is, therefore,
gambling that one must strive to understand, but one should
understand it in a philosophic sense, free from all vulgar ideas.”
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The Gambler’s Ruin (Annals of Math. 1909)
“Bold Play” is optimal?
J. L. Coolidge 1873-1954
“The player’s best chance of winning a certain sum at a
disadvantageous game, is to stake the sum which will bring him
that return in one play, or, if that be not allowed, to make
always the largest stake which the banker will accept.”
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The Game of Red-and-Black
You have some amount of money, say $200, and are in desperate
need to have a larger amount, say $500. Your only opportunity
is to make bets on Red (or Black) at a roulette wheel. So you
win each bet with probability 18/38 and lose with probability
20/38.
Bold play is to bet all of your $200. If you lose, the game is
over. If you win, you have $400, and should then bet $100. And
so on, until you reach your goal or go bankrupt.
If there is a house limit, say $100, you then begin by betting the
limit. And so on.
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How to Gamble If You Must:
Inequalities for Stochastic Processes 1965
Lester Dubins (1920-2010), Leonard Savage (1917-1971)
“We have not seen how to rescue much from Coolidge’s faulty
proof.”
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Red-and-Black with a house limitDavid Heath 1943-2011
Bold play is optimal for red-and-black if the goal is $500, andthe house limit is $100 but not if the limit is $200.
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Edward O. Thorp: Another Gambling Scholar 1932-
Beat the Dealer 1962, Beat the Market 1967
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Meaning of Probability?
Symmetric outcomes: number of favorable outcomestotal number
The probability of getting a 6 on a fair die = 16.
Longrun frequency: number of successes in many trialsnumber of trials
The probability of getting a 6 on a fair die is about
number of 6’s in n tossesn
for n large.
Probability Vikings win their next game = ?
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Truth and Probability Frank P. Ramsey 1903-1930
“In this essay the Theory of Probability is taken as a branch oflogic, the logic of partial belief and inconclusive argument ...”
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Subjective Probability and Coherent Odds
Bruno de Finetti 1906-1985
La prevision: ses lois logiques, ses sources subjectives
1937
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A Theorem of de Finetti
If a bookie offers odds that are inconsistent with the laws of
probability, then there is a way for a gambler to place bets that
guarantee a winning outcome.
In the language of math finance: If prices are inconsistent with
the laws of probability, then there is an arbitrage opportunity.
The Black-Scholes formula for pricing an option assumes there
is no arbitrage opportunity.
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Iowa Election Market:Winner-Take-All
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Congressional Control Market (2).png
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Mathematical Statistics: Bayesians, Frequentists,
and R. A. Fisher
Thomas Bayes 1702-1761
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Bayes’ Theorem
The posterior probability that the hypothesis H is correct given
the evidence E is related to the probability of E given that H is
correct and the prior probability that H is correct:
P (H|E) =P (E|H)× P (H)
P (E).
Typically, neither the prior nor the posterior probability of H
makes sense to a frequentist.
Problem for Bayesians: Where does the prior come from?
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Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827
An objective Bayesian in the 19th century
Principle of Insufficient Reason
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R. A. Fisher 1890-1962: the greatest 20th centurystatistician
Fisher believed Bayesian methods “must be wholly rejected.” Hecalculated “fiducial” probabilities for H given E.
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Jerzy Neyman (1894-1981), Egon Pearson (1895-1980)
Two prominent frequentists not admired by Fisher
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Leonard Savage again and the revival of the Bayesians
The Foundations of Statistics 1954
“... the theory of personal probability applied to statistics shows
that many of the prominent frequentist devices can at best lead
to accidental and approximate, not systematic and cogent, suc-
cess ...”
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David Blackwell 1919-2010
Greatest 20th Century African-American Mathematician
Converted to a Bayesian by Savage
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Written and Sung by David Blackwell, Altea, Spain 1987
(Verse one)
Bayes!
You’re the very best
Truer than all the rest
Confidence, Fiducial too
I don’t need them
since I have you.
(To the tune of “Who stole my heart away.”)
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Bradley Efron - born 1938 in St Paul
Inventor of the bootstrap
“Broadly speaking, Bayesian statistics dominated 19th Century
statistical practice while the 20th Century was more frequentist.
Whats going to happen in the 21st Century? One thing thats al-
ready happening is that scientists are bringing statisticians much
bigger data sets to analyze, with millions of data points and
thousands of parameters to consider all at once.”
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Final Anecdotes on Statistics, the Law, and Data
The Rajender Decree 1980-1991
Charlotte Stiebel 1929-2014
mathematician,feminist,lawyer
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Pillsbury, Green Giant, and age discrimination (1983?)
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Statistics, you see,
is a wondrous cult
For a non-mathematical mind,
Which wants but the final,
or end result -
As to how it’s attained
is quite blind.
Anonymous
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Thanks for your attention!
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