CNN News Clip

Gambling is big business and those big dollars could be tempting to student athletes, who might shave points to affect the odds at legal gambling sites in Nevada. The list of college basketball games shows a string of plus and minus signs next to the teams to influence the betting on those teams. However, we don't need to go to Nevada to run into odds. Consider the following situation. "Last week I won a free Big Mac at McDonald's. I sure was lucky!" exclaimed Charlie. "Do you go there often?" asked Pat. "Only twenty or thirty times a month. And the odds of winning a Big Mac were only 20 to 1." "Don't you mean 1 to 20?" queried Pat. "Don't confuse me with details. I don't even understand odds at the racetrack, and I go all the time. Why do I need to know anything about odds anyway?"

In this section, Charlie will learn about odds, the calculation of odds, and their relationship to probability. He will also learn about two models to help in calculating probabilities: one to use in finding the probability that something will not occur, and the other to use for calculating the probability when the sample space has been altered because of some additional information.