A reminder :
STATISTICS AND GAMBLING
Meeting of the General Applications Section
Tuesday November 7th
2.00-5.30
at the Royal Statistical Society
Speakers and abstracts:
David Forrest (University of Salford)
MODELLING SALES OF LOTTO AND SIMILAR GAMES
Modelling sales of the main National Lottery draw and similar games raises
interesting statistical issues. For example, while sales respond to the
expected value of a ticket, the latter is itself mechanistically dependent
on sales. Methodology that allows for such endogeneity will be discussed at
the beginning of the presentation before a consideration of what can be
learned from the exercise. For example, can modelling past sales help the
decision on which bidder for the next Lottery licence offers the 'best'
portfolio of games? How important are smaller prizes in stimulating sales?
Have new games just cannibalised old games? As well as reviewing published
research on Lotto, new results will be presented on sales of Euromillions
and the now defunct Lotto Extra.
Johnnie Johnson, Ray O'Brien, Jean-Francis Bozetto
(University of Southampton)
THE IMPACT OF EVOLVING AND SPORADICALLY CHANGING INFORMATION ON SUBJECTIVE
PROBABILITY JUDGMENTS IN A FINANCIAL MARKET
This paper reports the results of a field study examining the ability of
decision-makers to effectively account for evolving and sporadically
changing information in their subjective probability judgments. The
research is conducted in a naturalistic setting where it is possible to
measure the extent to which dynamic information is employed in probability
judgments: the horserace betting market. The study explores the subjective
probabilities of bettors concerning 16,344 horses running in 1,671 races.
The results suggest that bettors are skilled in discounting evolving and
sporadically changing information in their probability judgments. They
appear to achieve this by adopting effective heuristics to simplify their
dynamic information environment and by learning to improve their judgments
using outcome feedback. A number of task, individual and environment
related factors which help bettors' effectively handle sporadically
changing information, and which could be of value to decision-makers in
other areas of human endeavor, are discussed.
Oliver Johnson
(University of Bristol)
GAMBLING AND INFORMATION THEORY
We describe links between simple models of gambling and Shannon's Information
Theory. In particular, we will explain how a successful gambling strategy can
lead to successful entropy estimation and data compression.
The meeting is open to all and free of charge but if possible
pre-registration is requested. Please email
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] or tel. 020 7638 8998 to
register. For more information please contact Professor Antony
Fielding: <mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
Antony Fielding
Professor of Social and Educational Statistics
Department of Economics
University of Birmingham ,
United Kingdom
Honorary Visiting Fellow
Centre for Multilevel Modelling
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol
Joint Editor, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A
(Statistics in Society)
Address: Department of Economics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15
2TT , UK
Telephone numbers
0121-414-6649 ( university direct)
0121-414-6640 ( dept office)
0121-414-7377 ( university fax)
0121 -449-7986 or 0121 -246-2932 ( home)
01479 831649 (Boat of Garten)
07710-196121( mobile)
email : [log in to unmask] or alternatively
[log in to unmask]
(note carefully spelling of my christian name-- along with Lord Snowdon and
a few others I have no 'h' in it)
web page : www.economics.bham.ac.uk/people/fieldingt.htm
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