After reading Alex’s Adventures in Numberland I was made more aware of the different types of risks we take in everyday life. This chapter explores the risks people take when gambling, or playing games involving money. It is clear that there is a huge money making opportunity bas
Slot machines are a huge profit maker in Casinos
-ed around the risks people are willing to take to make easy money. Bellos (2010, p) states that:
“slot machines make $25 billion dollars per year (USA) after paying out prizes.”
Clearly, there is a huge market for exploiting people’s willingness to take risk. But what does this mean?
The Oxford Dictionary (no date) defines risk as: “A person or thing regarded as likely to turn out well or badly in a particular context or respect.” Taking a risk means we are taking a chance on an unpredictable outcome. The outcome may result in something bad happening but there is a chance that something good may arise from the risk we have taken. In order to understand risk
many people dream of winning big money, but at what risk?
properly we must be able to calculate the probability of an outcome. Probability is the study of chance and with a mathematical approach unpredictability becomes very predictable. (Bellos, 2010) Casino games and bets require the player to have an expected value, this is their expectation of what they can get out of a bet. For example a £10 bet could be calculated as: (chances of winning £10) x £10 + (chances of losing £10) x-£10. In casinos players should expect to lose money, but the chance of winning big means there is a great desire to take risk for an unpredictable outcome.
Probability can be used to calculate the probability of throwing a certain score on dice. When you throw a die there a 6 possibilities (1,2,3,4,5 or 6). BBC bitesize explores this further and states that there are three ways of getting an odd number (1, 3 or 5).
So the probability of getting an odd number = the number of ways of getting an odd number / total number of possible outcomes. = 3/6 = 1/3 or 0.5 or 50%.
Here there is a connectedness (linking back to Liping Ma’s (2010) definition of PUFM explored in the essay and other blog posts) as to understand what these numbers mean, a person must know fractions, decimals and percentages. They must also have the understanding of equivalent values. By calculating the outcome of probability when throwing dice, a person is able to calculate the risk that the die may/may not land on a number they have betted on.
Why is probability and risk important in our everyday lives?
In our everyday lives we take many risks. Risks may arise on simple tasks like crossing the road, being able to calculate the speed of the car across the distance you need to travel. You may decide that it is highly probable that you will get across the road safely but there is always an element of risk as you cannot control the drivers speed, the driver may not stop (unlikely but 
possible). Risk in our everyday lives may be about calculating danger but can be as simple as sending a text that may have a negative response. In my job as a lifeguard I am constantly aware of risks in the workplace and thinking about the likelihood of an accident arising. Being able to identify risks in the workplace means you need to be able to identify what may cause harm to people and deciding if action is necessary to prevent incidents from happening.
The law states that businesses should carry out risk assessments. A risk assessment means a worker is taking measures to control or limit the risks in the workplace. This means that workers must have a basic understanding of mathematics in order to calculate the risk and work out the probability of an accident happening. Another example of risks in our everyday lives could be revising for examinations. There is an element of risk in revising that you may miss out key information, or you may look at past papers and work out the probability of certain questions coming up in the exam, meaning you only study for these questions. Again, maths would need to be understood in order to calculate the likelihood of a question being in an exam paper. The risk in this would be that exam questions are often random, and there are simply somethings in live that we cannot predict. By limiting revision to questions that you have predicted will come up, you have taken a risk. The risk may be that although highly probable, the questions you predicted were not in the exam and everything you revised is of little use. This could also relate to Liping Ma’s (2010) PUFM as she explores a person having the ability to look at things with multiple perspectives. In risk and probability you must be able to approach a problem with multiple views as there is often more than one outcome. A worker needs to be equipped with the mathematical knowledge to allow them to evaluate and calculate risk in the workplace in order for a business to thrive.
References:
BBC, Bitesize Revision, Probability (no date) Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zxfj6sg/revision/6 (Accessed on 8th November 2016)
Bellos, Alex (2010), Alex’s Adventures in Numberland
The Oxford Dictionary, Definition of Risk, no date, Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/risk (Accessed on 8th November 2016)
Ma, Liping (2010) Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: teachers’ understanding of fundamental mathematics in China and the United States
