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Activity Number:
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367
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Type:
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Contributed
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Date/Time:
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Tuesday, August 4, 2009 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
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Sponsor:
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Section on Statistical Education
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| Abstract - #305608 |
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Title:
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Teaching Probability and Combinatorics Using Lotteries
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Author(s):
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Patricia B. Humphrey*+
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Companies:
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Georgia Southern University
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Address:
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Department of Mathematical Sciences, Statesboro, GA, 30460-8093,
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Keywords:
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Lotteries ; Combinatorics ; Probability ; Expected Value
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Abstract:
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Lotteries fund education in many states. They've even been called a "tax on people who flunked Statistics." Many probability topics that students sometimes have trouble grasping can be framed in the context of a lottery. For example, if the "Mega Millions" jackpot is now up to big numbers - should I take a chance? What is the expected value of such a wager? There are many other interesting ideas with combinatorics that can be viewed from the perspective of a lottery - for example, pairs of consecutive digits seem to happen fairly often. Is this expected? What's the chance of longer strings of consecutive digits? What's the chance the winning set of numbers has an odd (or even) sum? What's the chance a lottery picks the same set of digits two nights in a row? (The Associated Press got this one wrong in January 2009).
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