Football pool probabilites...

[Tater10]

Maybe i'm missing something.

I am in a football pool that you pick with lines.

Assume there are 4 players, and 4 games, and the probability of winning each individual game is 50%.

Name/Team1/Team2/Team3/Team4
Alf/A/C/E/G
Bob/A/D/E/H
Cat/A/C/F/H
Don/B/D/F/H

(basically, Don is the only player to take team B, the rest split on the other games.) If there is a tie, a winner is chosen randomly.

I ran a 21k sim, and have the probabilies:

Alf: 22.6%
Bob: 22.5%
Cat: 23.4%
Don: 31.5%

Can I extrapolate this, and say when I play in my football pools, i should try and pick the opposite of what other people have?

[xniNja]

If I knew more about football pools I might better be able to answer this... but the only thing I can offer is an interrogative question...

If the probability of winning each game is 50%.... why does that 21K sim say Don is the winner? Is it because he picked team B? Therefore you should pick team B?

I don't understand the scenario, I guess.

If:
1. All results are equally probable.
and
2. The payout is split between all of the people that picked a particular result.
Then it's obviously true that the least chosen combinations have the best value.