{"id":331,"date":"2006-07-15T06:25:49","date_gmt":"2006-07-15T06:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/?p=331"},"modified":"2017-02-12T15:59:40","modified_gmt":"2017-02-12T07:59:40","slug":"should-we-teach-gambling-in-math-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/learn-math\/should-we-teach-gambling-in-math-classes-331","title":{"rendered":"Should we teach gambling in math classes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have always enjoyed teaching probability. You can have fun getting the students to mess around with dice, cards and lottery results. Some students have no idea what a poker hand even looks like (either they come from a family that never played games with their kids, or the family does not approve of gambling).<\/p>\n

So I found myself teaching them about the \"mathematical sins\" of gambling - that you will never win if you are a player, but a sure winner if you are the organiser of the gambling event. <\/p>\n

In Singapore, where there are strong objections to gambling from the Malay and Christian communities, the Toto website<\/a> has:<\/p>\n

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Please exit immediately if you are under 18.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But I still felt that my under 18-year-olds should know about gambling, about the odds of not winning and something about the psychology of gambling. I included a section \"TOTO Example<\/a>\" about the Singapore game of TOTO.<\/p>\n

It was with interest that I came across an article in the Vancouver Sun, \"Poker lessons - an education that you could bet on\", where the organiser was having some bother (from the authorities) when trying to teach poker.<\/p>\n

According to the article, child psychology professor Jeffrey Derevensky of McGill University feels that <\/p>\n

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already too many kids are gambling and as soon as they're old enough to get credit cards they'll be on the Internet betting away money they don't have.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The following is likely, since governments around the world reap large windfalls from \"voluntary taxes\", a.k.a. gambling:<\/p>\n

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Once the kids learn the real odds of ever winning a government lottery, the chances are they'll never buy a ticket -- which might explain the B.C. government's vehemence. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I agree with the writer's conclusion:<\/p>\n

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Besides, poker's not just a game, it's a lesson in math, probability, risk and reading character. In other words, it's a lesson in life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So do I gamble? Yep, occasionally and mostly only with peanuts.<\/p>\n

See the 14 Comments<\/a> below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a moral dilemma when it comes to teaching probability. Are we in danger of promoting gambling? Should we worry about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}