How risky are you? 7 August 2006 at 4:28PM in Money Saving Polls 23 replies 3.5K views

Former_MSE_Archna

Poll Title: Poll Started 7 August 2006: How risky are you? If I offered you a wager on a month's salary on the single toss of a (fair) coin, what's the lowest odds at which you'd take the bet? For those who don't understand gambling odds, 2-1 means you bet a month's salary and if you win you get back your salary plus two times your salary - but if you lose it all goes. Traditionally a coin toss would be evens (1-1) as it's a balanced chance, so anything higher is, odds-wise at least, a good bet.

A. Evens
B. 2-1
C. 3-1
D. 5-1
E. 10-1
F. 20-1
G. 50-1
H. 100-1
I. I would never risk a month's salary regardless.

Click reply to discuss or vote here.

IvanOpinion

If I can do the tossing (oooo errrr missus) and the calling then I would go for whatever odds I could get. Tossing a coin is not balanced if you are the !!!!!! and the caller ... apparently, and I have no idea how this works but it does seem to, position the coin, look at which side is showing and then call the other side ... improves the odds significantly

Ivan

wigginsmum

I won't even pay £1 for a lottery ticket so you're not getting your hands on my month's salary

Fifer

If I can get odds of 2-1 or more every month for at least a year, I'll take the bet.

GUMPO

This shouldn't even need thinking about. If you know the odds are fixed and that your return is going to be greater than it should be gamble every time.

Fifer

Not necessarily Gumpo. If you only get one shot at the bet and you cannot afford to lose the stake, it would be crazy to take a 50:50 gamble at any odds.

Tirian

GUMPO wrote:

This shouldn't even need thinking about. If you know the odds are fixed and that your return is going to be greater than it should be gamble every time.

Gambler's logic. And utterly false.

If you could make the bet an unlimited number of times then it becomes a different matter, but even then it's possible that you will just lose lots and lots of money.

If you only have one bet, no matter what the 'odds' are, it's still a 50% chance that you're throwing away a month's salary. Personally, I think anyone who would take that chance is a complete fool.

Tirian

aceandy79

I've noticed that 4% of people who've taken part selected 'Evens'. I'm not an experienced gambler but surely evens means is that if you win, you get what you would have had without even taking the bet!

aceandy79

aceandy79 wrote:

I've noticed that 4% of people who've taken part selected 'Evens'. I'm not an experienced gambler but surely evens means is that if you win, you get what you would have had without even taking the bet!

No sorry, I'm being dumb! It must means you would win an extra months salary.

Detail_Merchant

Tirian wrote:

If you only have one bet, no matter what the 'odds' are, it's still a 50% chance that you're throwing away a month's salary. Personally, I think anyone who would take that chance is a complete fool.

I'm not so sure.

It's fairly common advice that one should have about six months income as savings as a kind of emergency fund.

If I lost a month's salary, it would be disappointing, but it wouldn't be life changing.

However, if I won a lump sum of 100 times my monthly salary, I could pay off my mortgage and still have most of the money left, which would be life changing.

So I would consider this bet given odds of 100-1.

Of course you are right that it is 50% likely that I would lose 1 months pay. But if I did, I think I would not regret taking the chance of a life changing event.

Regards,

Detail Merchant

webwiz

I would take 3:2 which was not in the list so I said 2:1. It's true that provided you could keep repeating the bet then any odds greater than evens should be accepted. It is also true that for a one-off non-repeatable bet you should not accept if you cannot afford to lose unless the odds are really in your favour - say 5:1. But although this may be a one-off there will be many one-offs in life which can be aggregated.