On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 11:43:32 -0500, burt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> A casino that I frequent has a "bad beat" jackpot in its poker room.
> Without going into all the rules, suffice it to say that the chances of
> anyone's hitting the jackpot within any two minute interval is probably
> of the order 10**-6. In other words, hitting the jackpot can definitely
> be construed as a rare event.
Going at it 24x7, at 720 intervals per day, that comes out to once
every 3.7 years...
> The jackpot had not been hit in about four
> months, until last weekend, when it was hit two times in 12 hours. This
> phenomena has happened before--several months without being hit, then
> bam, it is hit twice in a few hours. Isn't this a characteristic of a
> Poisson process? A very rare event goes a long time without occurring,
> then it occurs several times within a short period.
No, that isn't a characteristic of a Poisson variable (or a "Poisson
process"). (Sounds like a mechanic is visiting for the day....)
There are vast raw odds against certain poker hands (royal flushes; 4
aces); there are a large number of magicians who exist who have
really, really clever hands; there are a lot of folks who play poker
who don't think to watch for something as crude as dealing extra
cards.
I have wondered at what the ratio might be, of Observed royal flushes,
to Honest royal flushes.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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