Maths people, help!
In "Scarne on Cards", John Scarne discusses the odds for a game. He says this:
"The chances are 12220 to 9880 in their favour. [These numbers are definitely correct -- sil] That is, the percentage in their favour is 10-1/123."
Where's he getting that percentage from? How's he doing the calculation? I can't end up at that number, so I must be doing something wrong...
@sil Incidentally, if I was emperor of the universe, I would ban percentages. They look like a number you could add, but are really a fraction you should multiply, and people find that confusing and difficult. You get people saying things like "The X party are ten percent ahead of the Y party in the polls", when 20% to %10 is actually double (that is, 100% ahead).
@mavit yes! I have no intuition on these which means that I never properly understand what the number actually means!
@mavit here’s the whole page with full calculation (also for @jamesh )