I may have to lay down a couple of bucks myself.

[quade 4]

I think you misunderstand either what I'm saying or I misunderstand what you're saying when you say there are 1024 possible outcomes.

Let's simplify.

I have three coins; A a penny, B a nickel, and C a quarter.

Each coin has two sides; Head, Tails or 1,0

Outcomes can be;

0,0,0
0,0,1
0,1,0
0,1,1
1,0,0
1,0,1
1,1,0
1,1,1

Eight possible outcomes, but all eight are not equally likely to add up to 31 cents.

Yes I realize you attempt to address this in the following comment lines, but I'm not convinced you did it correctly because not every one of the 1024 outcomes was equally likely to produce a win.

Also, you're being overly pedantic when it comes to the word infinitesimal. Sure, I'll admit that was a bit of hyperbole on my part. Get over it. Of course if Trump has even a 1% possibility of winning that's "orders of magnitude greater then infinitesimal." No shit, Sherlock.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[jcd11235 0]

quade

Yes I realize you attempt to address this in the following comment lines, but I'm not convinced you did it correctly because not every one of the 1024 outcomes was equally likely to produce a win.

I treated the 1024 outcomes as equally likely to occur, not as equally likely to produce a win. For each outcome, I summed the electoral votes Trump would win from toss-up states given that outcome, and added that sum to the 191 electoral votes the site suggests are safely his. If the total exceeded 269 electoral votes, the outcome resulted in a Trump victory.

Quote

Also, you're being overly pedantic when it comes to the word infinitesimal.

I'm a math and stats guy. If you claim something has an infinitesimal value, I have only the definition of infinitesimal to work with to understand what you mean. However, I don't think that we can reasonably interpret infinitesimal to mean anything greater than one percent, even colloquially. That being said, even if you really meant less than five percent chance, I can't make any realistic assumptions that can get Trump's chances that low.

Also note that I completely ignored the possibility of a Clinton indictment over her private email server between the convention and the election. While every account I've read suggests that is unlikely, we can't rule it out until the FBI closes their investigation. An indictment would strongly favor Trump on election day.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

jcd11235

...Also note that I completely ignored the possibility of a Clinton indictment over her private email server between the convention and the election. While every account I've read suggests that is unlikely, we can't rule it out until the FBI closes their investigation. An indictment would strongly favor Trump on election day.

Don't bet on it.

Right now there are 4 basic viewpoints.*

Like Hillary

Hate Trump enough to vote for Hillary

Like Trump

Hate Hillary enough to vote for Trump.

I don't see an indictment changing any votes except for maybe a few of the "like Hillary" ones. And most of those are convinced that the whole investigation is trumped up (pun not intended).

* - There's also the "Hate them both and won't vote for either of them" that includes me, but I'm not foolish enough to believe that anyone but Trump and Hillary have a chance.

And you & Quade can argue odds and semantics all you want.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that Trump has a real chance of winning. The "hate Hillary" plus the fools who actually are falling for Trump's propaganda groups are bigger than anyone realized.

I don't think 3:1 odds for Trump winning are all that far off. I hope like all hell that I'm wrong, but the idiocractic party seems to be taking off rather well.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[SethInMI 174]

quade

I think you're making assumptions not in evidence.

An example would be this comment;

Quote

# Each of 1024 possible tossup state results is equally likely.

The odds of every toss up state going for Trump is considerably less than equal to half of them going for Trump. There's probably a bell shaped curve in there.

You guys are talking past each other, as is par for the course here in Speakers Corner.

jcd says "all 1024 outcomes are equally likely"
quade says "the chance of trump winning all 10 states is very unlikely"

both of these are true. of the 1024 outcomes, the number of outcomes where trump won all states is 1 (very unlikely). the number of outcomes where he won exactly 50% of the states is 252 (~25% still unlikely), and more than 50% is 386 (%38 still unlikely)

the reason for the non-trivial result of ~0.29 win probability is the electoral votes in each state are not equal, so trump has to win large states or a lot of small states.

It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

[jcd11235 0]

wolfriverjoe

I don't see an indictment changing any votes except for maybe a few of the "like Hillary" ones. And most of those are convinced that the whole investigation is trumped up (pun not intended).

Perhaps I'm overestimating the negative impact an indictment would have on Clinton's chances. Regardless, as I said, I completely ignored the possibility of an indictment when calculating probability.

Quote

I don't think 3:1 odds for Trump winning are all that far off. I hope like all hell that I'm wrong, but the idiocractic party seems to be taking off rather well.

For clarification, are you suggesting 3:1 odds against him winning, i.e., he has a 25 percent probability of winning? Or are you saying the odds are 1:3 against him winning, i.e., he has a 75 percent chance of winning?

The former interpretation is consistent with the betting odds presented by the OP, as well as the rough estimates I calculated. The latter suggests he has a much better chance of victory.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

jcd11235

For clarification, are you suggesting 3:1 odds against him winning, i.e., he has a 25 percent probability of winning? Or are you saying the odds are 1:3 against him winning, i.e., he has a 75 percent chance of winning?

The former interpretation is consistent with the betting odds presented by the OP, as well as the rough estimates I calculated. The latter suggests he has a much better chance of victory.

3:1 against. 25% chance of winning. I was agreeing with the odds presented in the OP.

Although there is no direct connection, the "collective intelligence" of a large group of betters has demonstrated itself to be pretty accurate.

Barring a huge individual bet that would skew the odds, history has shown that the odds do a pretty good job of predicting outcomes.
I can't find a link with the info, but back in the 50s & 60s, US intelligence agencies made this discovery. And they started utilizing it. Analysts would bet bottles of good liquor on their predictions. It was a way of quantifying a hunch.
And while not perfect, it turned out to be reasonably effective.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[jcd11235 0]

wolfriverjoe

Barring a huge individual bet that would skew the odds, history has shown that the odds do a pretty good job of predicting outcomes.

If I'm not mistaken, you're referring to the wisdom of crowds.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

jcd11235

***Barring a huge individual bet that would skew the odds, history has shown that the odds do a pretty good job of predicting outcomes.

If I'm not mistaken, you're referring to the wisdom of crowds.

More or less.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo