Video Transcript

Did you know there's a statistical concept that you can use to win a bet nearly every time with your friends?  It goes like this.  Tell your friend they can look up any news article they want.  Ask them to add up how many times each number from 0 to 9 appears in the article - it doesn't matter if the numbers appears inside another number, you want to count the total # of times each number uniquely appears in the article.  So if the article mentions the year 1999, then that means the number 1 appears once, and the number 9 appears 3 times.  

Tell them your score will only represent how many times a 0, 1 or 2 appear in the article, and their score will represent how many times a 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 appear in the article.  These are easy to count because you can use the find or search feature in any web browser to search for each number and it will tell you how many times it uniquely appears in the page including any ads or comments on the page.  

Naturally it sounds like a great bet for them since they will have 7 unique numbers to look for and you'll only have 3.  However, you will have a much greater probability of winning every time.  But even if you happen to not win the first time, the probability of you winning is so great that you can confidently bet them double or nothing for the best 2 out of 3 tries.

It sounds crazy, right?  But go ahead and check it out and you'll be amazed to see that it consistently works.  Check out my next video on this and I'll explain the statistical concept of why this works.