Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Odds

So I'm on a math roll today, finally got my math homework done and realized that I am one math post short for the math blog - oops! So I'll be covering the last and shortest part of the probability section: Odds!

Now, odds and probability are different, and it is important to know what that difference is.

Image from Math Magic website

The numerator for both is the amount of times you obtain the desired outcome, but the difference lies in the numerator. While probability has a denominator that lists all the outcomes, when calculating odds, you have the undesirable outcomes as your denominator.
To find out what the undesirable number is, simply find the total number of outcomes and subtract from that the number of desirable outcomes. This leaves you with the undesirable outcomes, your odds denominator.

Math Magic has a great page explaining probability and how to change from probability to odds. See it here: Math Magic - Probability

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