Improve your chances
If More or Less has stirred an interest in you, why not explore our suggested courses.
Click through this
For an almost countless range of extra resources on statistics, economics - and maths jokes - sample our weblinks.
What does mean mean?
So you think you’re pretty average do you? But you might actually be a mean or even a median…there's nothing average about averages.
Related programme
The Ever Wondered team gave financial guru Alvin Hall a fiver and sent him off to a greyhound track to explore how you can use numbers to shorten the odds
Philip Chandler: Basically a bookmaker can only accept one type of bet, which is a win bet, and with the tote you have win, place and forecast, which is getting the first and the second dog.
Alvin: I want some inside information. How can a complete novice bet on a winning dog?
Philip Chandler: The best bet would probably be to buy a good newspaper, like The Racing Post, and follow the experts.
Alvin: But isn’t there a bit of chance in it?
Philip Chandler: Oh, probably. My wife is always lucky -she just looks at the dog that looks the prettiest. And she backs more winners than I ever could.
More confused then ever Alvin decides to put this racing game into perspective before he places his first bet.
Alvin: Racing is a part of the British soul and betting on racing seems to be one of the passions as we can see from the noise here. Why is that?
Rebecca Cassidy, social anthropologist: Well I think it’s because it enables people to have a vested interest in something that they’re excited by. You’re coming for a nice evening with your friends and you want to bet. If you don’t have a bet then it’s just another dog race, but if you have an actual interest in number five or number four you can hear everybody cheering their dog on and for a moment or two it becomes "their" dog. Just the same as in horse racing you can bet on the Queen’s horse and for a moment be linked in with her and be cheering with the Queen. It’s you and her against the rest.
Alvin: So out of the two of them, which one do you think is the most speculative?
Rebecca Cassidy: I would say dog racing. But if you want to make money, I would say that you need to go to a horse racetrack. There are far more unpredictable factors involved in a dog race than in a horse race.
Alvin: Well it’s time to place my bet and I’m going to make my decision on three factors:
First, what’s the dog’s history, how has it come in past races?
Second, why did it lose those races, was it buffed, did something happen?
Third, intuition - do I like the name?
I think I might bet a fiver on Left Peg!
< previous Page 2 of 2
Content last updated: 22/06/2005
About our expert
Alvin Hall has written several training manuals and books including the best selling Getting Started In Mutual Funds. As well as presenting the BBC’s Your Money or Your Life he runs seminars about the investment markets for financial companies. Alvin’s favourite phrase is "As long as you invest no more money than you can afford to lose, you’ll have few sleepless nights"This article is an edited transcript from an edition of Ever Wondered.
