The Gamblers’ Press
The Gamblers’ Press is a weekly paper that publishes large amounts of information that is used by gamblers. Its main contents are detailed sections on horse racing, greyhound racing, football and other major sporting activities. It also runs regular features on card games, casino games and other areas that gamblers find interesting. The Gamblers’ Press was founded in 1897 and now has a regular circulation of 50,000 copies. It is considered a highly respectable paper and has a strict policy of giving only factual information. It never gives tips or advice. Last year it decided to run a special feature on misleading or dishonest practices. This idea was suggested when four unconnected reports were passed to the editors. The first report concerned an ‘infallible’ way of winning at roulette. Customers were charged $500 for the details of the scheme, which was based on a record of all the numbers that won on the roulette wheel during one evening. Then the customers were advised to bet on two sets of numbers:
· those that had come up more often, because the wheel might be biased in their favour
· those that had come up least often, because the laws of probability say that numbers that appear less frequently on one night must appear more frequently on another night.
The second report showed that a number of illegal chain letters were circulating in Germany. These letters contained a list of eight names. Individuals were asked to send r10 to the name at the top of the list. Then they should delete the name at the top, insert their own name at the bottom and send a copy of the letter to eight of their friends. As each name moved to the top of the list they would receive payments from people who joined the chain later. The advertising accompanying these letters guaranteed to make respondents millionaires, claiming ‘You cannot lose!!!’ It also said that people who did not respond would be letting down their friends and would inevitably be plagued by bad luck. The third report was about ‘a horse racing consultant’, who sent people a letter saying which horse would win a race the following week. A week later he sent a second letter saying how the selected horse had won, and giving another tip for the following week. This was repeated for a third week. Then after three wins the ‘consultant’ said he would send the name of another horse which was guaranteed to win next week – but this time there would be a cost of $5,000. This seemed a reasonable price because the horse was certain to win and gamblers could place bets of any size. Unfortunately this scheme had a drawback. Investigators thought that the ‘consultant’ sent out about 10,000 of the original letters, and randomly tipped each horse in a five-horse race. The second letter was sent only to those people who had been given the winning horse. The next two letters followed the same pattern, with follow-up letters sent only to those who had been given the winning horse. The fourth report concerned a European lottery, where people entered by paying €1 and choosing six numbers in the range 00 to 99. At the end of a week a computer generated a set of six random numbers, and anyone with the same six numbers would win the major prize (typically several million euros), and people with four or five matching numbers would win smaller prizes. A magazine reported a way of dramatically increasing the chances of winning. This suggested taking your eight favourite numbers and then betting on all combinations of six numbers from these eight. The advertisement explained the benefit of this, ‘Suppose there is a chance of one in a million of winning the first prize. If one of your lucky numbers is chosen by the computer, you will have this number in over a hundred entries, so your chances of winning are raised by 100 to only 1 in 10,000.’
Question
1. The Gamblers’ Press finds schemes like these four almost every day, and often publishes articles on them. What do such schemes have in common? If you were asked to write an article about these four schemes, what would you say? You might start by explaining why the four schemes mentioned do not work, and then expand the study to include other examples of such schemes.