Page 53 - Probability Demystified

42 CHAPTER 2 Sample Spaces

They knew from gambling with dice that a sum of seven appeared more than
a sum of six. They believed that the reason was that the gods favored
the number seven over the number six, since seven at the time was considered
a ‘‘lucky number.’’ Furthermore, they even ‘‘loaded’’ dice so that the faces
showing one and six occurred more often than other faces would, if the dice
were fair.
It is interesting to note that on today’s dice, the numbers on the opposite
faces sum to seven. That is, 4 is opposite 3, 2 is opposite 5, and 6 is opposite 1.
This was not always true. Early dice showed 1 opposite 2, 3 opposite 4, and 5
opposite 6. The changeover to modern configuration is believed to have
occurred in Egypt.
Many of the crude dice have been tested and found to be quite accurate.
Actually mathematicians began to study the outcomes of dice only around
the 16th century. The great astronomer Galileo Galilei is usually given the
credit for figuring out that when three dice are rolled, there are 216 total
outcomes, and that a sum of 10 and 11 is more probable than a sum of 9
and 12. This fact was known intuitively by gamblers long before this time.
Today, dice are used in many types of gambling games and many types of
board games. Where would we be today without the game of Monopoly?
It is thought that playing cards evolved from long wooden sticks that had
various markings and were used by early fortunetellers and gamblers in the
Far East. When the Chinese invented paper over 2000 years ago, people
marked long thin strips of paper and used them instead of wooden sticks.
Paper ‘‘cards’’ first appeared in Europe around 1300 and were widely used
in most of the European countries. Some decks contained 17 cards; others
had 22 cards. The early cards were hand-painted and quite expensive to
produce. Later stencils were used to cut costs.
The markings on the cards changed quite often. Besides the four suits
commonly used today, early decks of cards had 5 or 6 suits and used other
symbols such as coins, flowers, and leaves.
The first cards to be manufactured in the United States were made by
Jazaniah Ford in the late 1700s. His company lasted over 50 years. The first
book on gambling published in the United States was an edition of Hoyle’s
Games, which was printed in 1796.