Читать книгу Casino Gambling For Dummies - Swain Scheps - Страница 77

Millions of merry gamblers frequent casinos all over the world every day without a clear understanding of one important concept — probability. Mastering one of the more complex branches of mathematics isn’t necessary for successful gambling. But an elementary understanding of probability is certainly helpful in making sound gambling choices.

Probability is the study of the laws of chance and the identification of how often certain events can be expected to occur. To express the probability, or likelihood, that a coin will turn up heads, you can give the result in numerous ways, such as a

 Ratio — 1 in 2 times

 Fraction — ½ or half the time

 Percentage — 50 percent

 Decimal — .50, which is the same as 50 percent

 Odds — 1-to-1Odds is an overloaded word in casino gambling. In this case, it’s an expression of the number of times something won’t happen next to the number of times it will happen. So, 1-to-1 odds means an event is an even-money event; it has an equal chance of occurring or not occurring. But odds has another meaning: The amount of money you win compared to the money you risk. If a bet payoff is concerned, we’ll refer to it as the payout odds.

(If you’re champing at the bit to find out more in-depth info about probability, there’s a 100 percent chance you’ll love reading Probability For Dummies by Deborah Rumsey, PhD, [Wiley].) This section looks a bit closer at probability’s role in casino gambling.