Friday, February 3, 2012

Super Bowl Bet

A camel who lives in New Jersey’s Popcorn Park Zoo has accurately predicted the last five out of six Super Bowl champions.  Camel is she and her name is Princess. How does she do the picking?  In a very scientific way. The General Manager of the zoo writes the names of the competing teams on each hand. He then places a graham cracker in each hand. The hand (and team) that Princess picks, through nibbling on the graham cracker, is going to be the winner.  This year I suspect that the general managed spread some Nutella on one of the crackers as Princess' Super Bowl XLVI pick is The New York Giants.

If camel can do it, we surely can try as well. Plus, from the last week's puzzle we all learned that the only impossible score is a score of 1. So, let's do a Super Bowl bet. No football knowledge is required to participate. Graham crackers and Nutella are optional.


We will try something a bit more sophisticated than a camel:
You name the winner correctly and your difference of the teams scores is within 3 points of the resulting difference - get one puzzle point.
You name the winner correctly and precisely predict the score - get two points.

For example: if the result is going to be Giants 25 - Patriots 31, with a score diff 31-25=6 then anyone who will predict the Partiots' win and propose a  score with a diff  6+/-3 that is in between 3 and 9 will get 1 puzzle point.

Your bets are accepted any time until noon Eastern Time on Sunday, on our Family Puzzle Marathon. They will be unleashed at noon on Sunday February 5th. Scores will be assigned on Monday morning. One score per person, please.

Top image by Fancy Jantzy, distributed under CCL.

15 comments:

Ilya said...

Would love to make a bet, but it's my way of not jinxing the Pats: no bets, even for something as valuable as the puzzle points!

Jerome said...

Oi Vey!!!
You don't know what kind of a can of worms you've opened here Maria. This has all the seriousness of ... well, of the uses of the binomial distribution.

Don't believe me??? Consider this.

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1125763--super-bowl-pick-the-new-york-giants-over-the-new-england-patriots-for-the-stock-markets-to-win

Imagine, all our pension money riding on Sunday's outcome.

So the serious question we have to consider is this

Will the god of sports favor the New York Giants as he did the St. Louis Cardinals this year (who should not have made it to the World Series, let alone win it - a true victory for the underdog)

or

Will the god of mathematics prevail? The winning percentage and better game stats favor the New England Patriots.

Hmm!!! Tough choice.

Better Offence. Better Defence. Which?

Sorry Maria, I have to go with the Giants. I am retired after all.

Giants: 20 - 14

You should release these before the game so we can all see what everyone else did.


You bet I'm going to pick with great caution. And after careful consideration my score will be

Annie said...

I'll go with Patriots 28 - Giants 24!

Lynnet said...

Patriots win 39 to 23

Anonymous said...

I am rooting for the Giants but think the Patriots are a better team. I predict Patriots 34 Giants 22.

GB

TMS math said...

I predict a Giants win 27 - 16.

anne-marie said...

Giants 27- Patriots 20, score difference 7

Bean said...

Patriots 14

TracyZ said...

I don't know much about football, but will give this try.

My Guesstimated Score for the Super Bowl:
Patriots: 23
Giants: 17
Point difference: 6

Jerome said...

This is not a bet. It is just a comment. You should open this up just when the game starts, and the question we will answer is, how many of those of us that placed a "bet" will also be watching the game.

My guess is that the % will be pretty high. We had a hockey pool once when Mary and I were first married. (Less than a year.) She couldn't the difference between a puck and a plate of lesagnia. Every game she could watch she did, just to see if she moved up in the pool standings.

That was the year (1982) that her team went to the finals and she beat all us so called expert dyed in the wool hockey fans. There were 16 of us and everybody put in 10 dollars (each). She was delighted with the money and enjoyed the games, but I'm not sure about the difference between pucks and food.

That says something about betting mathematics and interest, but I'm not sure what.

Anyway I'll be watching and I haven't watched a complete NFL game since the days of Joe Montana.

Maria said...

I will my luck with a lower score:
Patriots 19 - Giants 17, a diff of 2.

Kim said...

Pats 31 Giants 20

Pats +11

SteveGoodman18 said...

Patriots by 7. Although if the Giants win, my boss brings bagels to work tomorrow. Bagels or puzzle points... hmmm....

Maria said...

The God of Sports that Jerome mentioned had chose his favorites - NY Giants - undoubtedly the better team in the yesterday's game. It is a sad day here in New England.

But a winning day for Jerome and anne-marie who each got a puzzle point.
Giants score: 21-17 diff of 4
Jerome's: 20-14 diff of 6
anne-marie: 27-20 diff of 7

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