List by Author: John Haigh

In the TV game show Two Tribes teams can have unequal sizes. Is that fair?

One thing that makes TV game shows fun to watch is that there's usually an element of luck involved. But how (un)lucky is (un)lucky? We look at the probabilities of two popular examples.

The logic of drug testing

London 2012 vowed to be the cleanest Olympics ever, with more than 6,000 tests on athletes for performance enhancing drugs. But when an athlete does fail a drug test can we really conclude that they are cheating? John Haigh does the maths.

An almighty coincidence

Life is full of coincidences, but how do you work out if something is really as unlikely as it seems? In this article Rob Eastaway and John Haigh find chance in church and work out the odds.

Running a lottery, for beginners

There are many different types of lottery around the world, but they all share a common aim: to make money. John Haigh explains why lotteries are the way they are.

The UK National Lottery - a guide for beginners

In the early days of the UK National Lottery, it was quite common to see newspaper articles that looked back on what numbers had recently been drawn, and attempted to identify certain numbers as "due" or "hot". Few such articles appear now, and John Haigh thinks that perhaps the publicity surrounding the lottery has enhanced the nation's numeracy.

Blast it like Beckham?

What tactics should a soccer player use when taking a penalty kick? And what can the goalkeeper do to foil his plans? John Haigh uses Game Theory to find the answers, and looks at his World Cup predictions from last issue.

On the ball

If your team scores first in a football match, how likely is it to win? And when is it worth committing a professional foul? John Haigh shows us how to use probability to answer these and other questions, and explains the implications for the rules of the game.