Another OLG Paradox Of Probability

In stochastic processes the future is not uniquely determined, but we have at least probability relations enabling us to make predictions.
William Feller, An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications, Third Edition, Vol. I, p. 420

The Oracle of Ottawa has the grand pleasure to be a resident of Ottawa, Ontario. And in the Province of Ontario we have a wonderful organization known as the Ontario Lottery And Gaming Corporation.  The OLG is a house of many games. One of the most interesting is a sports game known as Pools. It is just like an office sports pool that you play at work, but Pools is an office pool that has as its "subspace" the whole population of Ontario! (population, 13,505,900)

Lesson? - Probability is Spooky...

  As you can well imagine, things can get pretty exciting well into the NFL football season, where by one of the most popular bets in Ontario is the weekly series of NFL games. There can be up to 16 games, from Thursday night to Monday night. For five dollars you can take your best shot, straight up, and come Tuesday, the winner(s) are announced. If you can pick 14-16 NFL games, straight up, you could turn $5.00 into several hundred thousand dollars! And it being Canada, this will all be sweet and tax free.

HP-11C - Good tools are very important...

If the Oracle of Ottawa's old brain is working correctly, The weekly NFL Pool was the first and only Pool in the Province of Ontario. Then of course came the weekend NHL hockey Pool, then the MLB baseball Pool. With a hold back of any where from 40% - 60% the good old OLG ran with a really good thing until at the time of this writing, there are pools offered every day.  Which is proper and fitting, fair and wide open.

Most of the time, the results are to be totally expected. Such as the days when 14 baseball games are on the list, and the results are that only 2- 4 people were able to pick 12 of the 14 offered games. For this awesome feat, the reward can be several thousand dollars! This, for those that know of such things, fits the normal curve about just right. And tomorrow there will another list. Now remember, this is a pool, you do not have to get all the games right, you only have to be the punter or punters that gets the most games right, result, you get all the money, Sweet!  

William Feller - Awesome beyond words...

For example, early last week, there was a card offered of a mere 10 night MLB games. If you have tried it Dear Reader, you know that handicapping MLB baseball is all but impossible. But on this day one punter in Ontario got all 10 games, and in turn took all the pool money, which was north of $20,000 bucks Canadian, great work, if you can snag it!

On Thursday last was offered Card #99, it consisted of all the pre-season NFL games from August 15, 2013 to August 17, 2013 a small list of only 14 pre-season NFL games. If you think that major league baseball is hard to cap, you also know that regular season NFL games is an awesome feat of capping prowess. But who in heavens name would be crazy enough to even try to cap 14 pre-season NFL games? Surely a total impossibility?


Then the little fridge light came on in the Oracles brain, give it a random guess, by a very possible stroke of luck, the Oracle could possibly pick say 12 out of 14 games and share the prize with say at least six other randomizers. Well it was this fine Sunday morning when the Oracle checked his ticket and discovered that he only could guess 7 out of 14. Pure text book expectation. But the Oracle of Ottawa was shocked to discover that 66 punters in Ontario were able to predict 14 out of 14 pre-season NFL games!! The odds of performing such a feat of picking 14 of 14 games are 1: 16,384! That means that about 1,081,344 tickets at five bucks each would have to be sold, more or less. For a gross pot of $5,406,720 +/-. before withholding percentage of the house take, assuming 40%, would leave a prize pool about 3,244,032, which would have meant 66 prizes of $49,152! The actual prize that was awarded to these awesome subset of punters was a mere $555.30 each!! Hmmm...

This of course means, and makes very much sense, that only a very very small subset of the population of the Province of Ontario actually played. But excuse me! Sixty six people of this small subset were able to pick all 14 of 14 winners!???  While the greatest capper in America alive today Kenneth Massey, could only manage a paltry prediction of 10 out of 14!? If one was really cynical one would blurt out that the only way this could possibly happen is if you were somehow able to buy your tickets after all the games were actually played! But the Oracle of Ottawa wouldn't think of doing a nasty thing like that....

Paradox Of The Spread

If you do know that here is the hand, we'll grant you all the rest.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, Section 1

In the Province of Ontario there is a game called Point - Spread offered up by the folks at Ontario Lottery and Gaming. It is offered in baseball (MLB), hockey (NHL) and football; both NFL and CFL! The "authority" assigns a value or a handicap figure to the perceived favorite of a matchup and you the punter simply have to decide if the team in question can win by more than a half point, a full point, and so on, or not. You can select from two to twelve games. The prize for picking the spread right for twelve consecutive games is one thousand times the wager. In Ontario at the time of this writing you can wager from two to one hundred dollars on one ticket. Imagine! Turning a two-ney into two thousand dollars!

Probability, even simple probability is very weird...

And in Canada it gets even better, the winnings are tax free! Provided of course that you are not doing it as a business, but only as a hobby. (If you are employing fifteen "runners" to place your tickets, odds are that you will be declared a business, so one must be careful.)

Ludwig Wittgenstein

 It is now on the verge of July. And everyone knows that July and August are nearly the two most important months of the MLB baseball season. Along with April, May, and June, not forgetting of course, September and October.... Again the Oracle of Ottawa is contemplating the fine points and eternal mysteries of the "spread". How hard can it be? Picking the correct result of the spread in a mere two games pays two times money. Two dollars becomes four dollars. There are games every day, why a really sharp person could own the world! Two events, with only two possible outcomes, Bust or Cover, gives the punter a one in four chance of doubling his money. That is like flipping two heads in a row, or hitting cold on two babes and getting their phone numbers one right after the other, stuff that the Oracle of Ottawa has done over and over in his long life with total ease. But sub in the words point spread and it might as well be infinity.   

The cold hard odds of picking the spread on twelve consecutive games is a mere 1 in 4096. Close inspection will reveal that that is one of the fairest props going. And it is fair. We are not talking soccer or cricket here. What keeps the Oracle of Ottawa up late in these summer nights is the certain knowledge that he has done far better at events with much, much higher odds. Take for example a twelve question test where there are four possible answers for each question. We now go from 1 in 4096 to 1 in 16,777,216! That is on a twelve question multiple choice quiz with four possible answers for each question, there are 16, 777, 216 ways to answer! And 531, 441 ways in which you can answer all twelve questions wrong! 

The paradox to the Oracle of Ottawa is that he can remember far more than one instance in his long life where by he has aced a twelve question multiple choice test with four choices offered for each question...Yet for the sheer life of me at the time of this writing, the Oracle still has yet to cash out on a three gamer point spread ticket. Which has the hard odds of 1 in 8, and which pays five times money. 

P.S.

Friday last there were 13 MLB games on the list. The Oracle of Ottawa focused for one more try and doped up all the days games. Then in fear that he might be becoming a problem gambler at two dollars a throw per day, put away the list in revulsion. The plan was to play two twelve gamer tickets one starting from the top and the other from the bottom of the list. Yesterday the Oracle decided to teach himself a lesson once and for all and check the results. There is no way on Earth that anyone can pick the spread results for thirteen games! Well Dear Reader you are right, I only picked 11 out of the possible 13!! If the Oracle would have played the two long shot tickets, he would have had two tickets that had 10/12 correct results, which pays 10 times money! My high stakes of $4.00 would have become $40.00... The Oracle is sure there is a moral to this story, but he just can't put his finger on it....

City of Ottawa - Referendum Questions?

Sadly, our society is so contaminated with the notion that acting for greed and self-interest is "normal" that we have weakened the essential fibre of society. 
Elizabeth May, Losing Confidence - Power, Politics, And The Crisis Of Democracy, p. 179

If, back in the 1970's, had you  have asked the Oracle of Ottawa if in Ottawa, cleaning up the piss between the Super Slots and the grannies washroom would be a career choice, the Oracle of Ottawa would probably have "clocked" you cold. But, alas, the future has not been kind to Ottawa or the youngsters of today. Since even being a piss wiper in a casino is all but out of the cards, due to the fact that the contract will no doubt be open to foreign gaming contractors. And will no doubt be won by some buck toothed Chinese peasant from Macau! Who will in turn, due to it being forever and sole sourced, bring his or its own guest workers! This of course was flown by the lads at CUPE 503 and all that was recorded was a vacant glassy far away stare.

Why don't we get a meth lab instead of a casino?

It all boggles the mind of the Oracle of Ottawa, that we can't get our garbage picked up once a week because we can't afford it, and yet we will be able to piss the rent money away at a foreign run gambling house! (24/7) The knuckle dragging burg(h)ers and the local police chief just freak at the idea of a safe injection site, yet see no problem with a casino within walking distance of the Parliament of Canada! Me thinks the prescription career aiding drugs of our swivel servants is starting to affect their judgement?

Macau - Ottawa Division?

The major point of all this that really irks the Oracle of Ottawa is that the City of Ottawa is ready to sell it's soul for a mere 5.0 to 7.0% cut of the gross! If you check into it yourself dear reader, you will soon discover that, all in, it is a real rip off of a deal. Just ask anyone from Windsor Ontario! Now if Gentleman Jim the mayor was really clever he would negotiate something less damaging from the Government of Ontario, like an industrial meth lab! We could hide it in the deepest part of the trunk sewers and keep all the money and send the product to China! Now, that's a plan? The money would be way better, and it would all be out of site, and undetectable deep underground. And once the money starts rolling in and no one in Ottawa would have to pay property taxes ever again, and our property values would go up! Seriously, what is the difference? Well?

No doubt these poor exploited honey's will be provided by the soul source contractor also....

Gentleman Jim Peddles The Lead Nugget Saloon

Still humping the American Dream, that vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino. 
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, p. 57

Ottawa ain't Monte Carlo! Why any mayor of Ottawa would want his legacy to be a gambling house, simply leaves the Oracle of Ottawa totally befuddled. And according to the local vulgar media, the public "consultation" didn't go too smoothly tonight. The ethically challenged  mayor cites the argument that Quebec is getting all the gambling dollars and leaving us, the citizens of Ottawa, with all the problems. And, therefore the solution is to build an even more tempting gambling house in Ottawa and make the problem twice as bad!  One can readily see that Carleton University does not do very well on the installation of the moral compass.

Starting point for new Ottawa Casino....

As mentioned in an earlier posting, the Oracle of Ottawa has related the fact that we already have the seed and perfect location and venue for a high end gambling house in Ottawa, and it is out in the boonies, where it should be, the Rideau-Carleton Race track. The Oracle of Ottawa simply can not understand what the Mayor of Ottawa has against the shit-fur interface of the horsey community?  The Oracle of Ottawa understands that the powers that be really hate dark brown and black arse holes, but did you ever try to apply an anus bleach kit to a horse? Pretty tricky, to say the least. One has to accept nature as it is, on certain occasions.

The key to this whole problem is that we must have something that Quebec can't hope to ever offer. Building a copy of the Gatineau Casino less then two miles from the original will be a total fail. They are established and they have brand. A hick and his bur(h)gers won't have a chance in Hell in matching them at there core competency! Why is that so hard to understand? What else is really at play here? What is in it for Gentleman Jim to persue this insane idea?

The key is to posh up the Rideau-Carleton Raceway! It is all too easy, over half of it is already there, and there sure won't be a parking problem! It is bush for as far as the eye can see! And it is very close to the Ottawa International Airport. This will be very important when Rideau-Carleton goes thoroughbred! That will be the angle that Quebec will not be able to touch! Improvements will include a new turf track! Why even the Queen of England would ship her horses to compete here in Ottawa! Ottawa could get into the Queens Plate cycle! Why not? Then the Arabs will come, do you see where all this is going? And then the spring annual Ottawa Derby! World class, international. Think with me people!!

As of late the Oracle of Ottawa has had a troubling and very recurring thought at where that down town casino will end up. Since the commercial tenants aren't exactly fighting over the available spaces at the Landsdowne Live train wreck, and the City of Ottawa taxpayer is already in for now over 200 million dollars, that shit hole casino could end up in the Glebe! As a matter of fact, that may have been the long term plan all along! What better way to rapidly depress all those nice old Glebe piles, that at present sell for over a million bucks a pop! Think about it people....What better way to land bank for all those throw away 500 square foot vinyl shoe boxes?  And I thought that nice David Chernushenko lad was way smart. But you can feel that he is sensing something is wrong, and he has no idea how right he is.... Now the only problem is to find who is leaking the master plan.....

Is Ottawa ready to pay this price? As an Ottawa taxpayer, are you ready for this 24/7??

Failure Means You Are Just About There!

It is most important in creative science not to give up. If you are an optimist you will be willing to "try" more than if you are a pessimist.
Stanislaw Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician, p.55

The month of March was very busy for the Oracle of Ottawa. The "Thinking About Thinking" project hit a rich vein.Yes indeed. I deployed elementary critical thought into a very elegant thought experiment, and then I postulated a very elegant hypothesis leading to a very simple lab experiment. The results were a total failure. 

Lorentz Transformation...

Many years ago when this happened to the Oracle of Ottawa he simply chalked it up to experience and moved on. This past algorithm has been wrong for all these years. This is what they teach in our schools and our universities. But, the Oracle of Ottawa had the recent self gained knowledge of the results of his intense "Thinking About Thinking" project to fall back on, this time. Instead of abandoning the idea totally, I turned the whole proposition on its head. Failure was turned into a very important, totally counterintuitive, discovery of the nature which is somewhat proprietary. The Oracle of Ottawa is still somewhat shaken at the nature of his discovery.

Quiet a lot of inspiration came from Stanislaw Ulam, and his book Adventures of a Mathematician. If you are involved or soon to embark on the creative sciences, I highly recommend it. You will find it endlessly inspirational. 

 It is the optimists that get all the glory. Even though they are not always the "smartest" or the most "gifted" people. On any given day the prize will go to the person, that will try one more time....
 

Letter to Diane "Of Ottawa" Deans

And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.
Mark 15:24 (King James Version)

Dear Councillor:

Let it be known by one and all that the Oracle of Ottawa holds you in the highest regard, for your immediate questioning of allowing yet more gambling in our fine City. When I saw your clip on the local, old vulgar media, (CTV) I swear I could hear the groaning of every degenerate gambler and all the radio talk show hosts. But don't let them get you down. Perhaps at the next council meeting you could suggest to Gentleman Jim that he should heat the bus shelters in the Market so the addicts won't go to Hull to buy their crack! That will get you "exposure" for sure! But seriously....

Roman Dice

The problem is, unfortunately, that gambling is legal and if it were not for it, certain ethnic and other groups, resident in the confines of our fair city would pay no tax's at all!  No sense at the end of the day losing this rich stream of "derivative" tax revenue...to the "evil empire" (i.e. Quebec). And more importantly where would the City of Ottawa Tax Department hold their Christmas Party? The high life of Ottawa...Oy!

William Blake, Casting Lots for Christs Garments...

But I have a plan councillor! You could go along as you will be, no doubt, pressured to do so, but you could throw the spanner into the open gear box. (No I am not referring to Jan Hardon...) But rather for your vote on this you must have something in return. Perhaps a pilot project, study, feasibility study, why hell, all the above mentioned! What you ( I ) want is Thoroughbred Racing ( ! ) in Ottawa! Point out that the posh people of Ottawa want something in return for their amusement, if they are going to have to tolerate the skidmarks having their " Table Games" which 99% of them couldn't play if their meager lives depended on it!

All Excited says; Bring me to Ottawa!

 Remind Gentleman Jim and your peers that the track (Rideau-Carleton) is presently located very close to an International Airport! And that the sport of horse racing is the Sport of Kings! (Pound your small but vital fist on the table at this point for emphasis....) And remind the council that if you thought you saw a lot of a certain ethnic group go nuts around a slot machine, just wait for the steady bottomless pocketed throngs that will show up for thoroughbred racing! You could research this yourself. Check out the attendance at a Hong Kong track! 

Race Day at Beverly, U.K. Why not here?

Now of course you need an event, internationally sanctioned, for all those Arabian, Asian and European racing farms to load up their cargo aircraft, with their many mounts, to come to!  May you suggest The Ottawa Derby that will be held on the Ontario Civic holiday? An annual event; of course!  An event such as this will require an infield Queen of The Derby... Why I couldn't think of anyone better then the founder of this great International event than Diane "of Ottawa" Deans!....

Respectfully Yours;
Oracleofottawa...

Secretariat; 1973 Kentucky Derby, Jockey; Ron Turcotte, Drummond, New Brunswick, CANADA!
( The record set on this day STILL STANDS!!)