Casino Projects

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Unique approach to teaching probability by incorporating casino games into the learning process. Engage students in brainstorming, keeping a casino project log, and providing gentle guidance to enhance their understanding of probabilities and expected values.

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Casino Projects A risky approach to teaching probability Thomas Young Woodstock Academy Woodstock, CT on.fb.me/1wZetto Click here for more

The Unit I introduce this project to my students after covering the basics of probability but before covering random variables and probability distributions. My entire probability unit is based on casino games. This unit and project were inspired by The Casino Lab activity in the TPS Teacher Resource Binder. Thomas Young Woodstock Academy Woodstock, CT

Brainstorming Discuss casino games with your students. Make sure that they understand the difference between games of chance and games of skill casino games are not carnival games. I give students the handout below and ask them to come up with three unique games. Most often, these games get changed many times so they do not need to worry about probabilities or expected values yet. Brainstorming Handout Thomas Young Woodstock Academy Woodstock, CT

The Casino Log I require students to keep a log/journal of their casino project progress. The brainstorming sheet becomes the first page of the log. Anytime they modify a game to adjust probabilities or payouts, I want to see their calculations and reasoning. This helps me to assign more accurate grades in the end because I can see that even though a project may look simple, the student may have put hours of work into getting the probabilities and payouts just right. Thomas Young Woodstock Academy Woodstock, CT

Gentle Guidance Plan for your students to get hopelessly lost in the open-endedness of this project. To help them out, set guidelines for ideal probabilities and expected values. For simple games, I like the house to win between 50.5% and 51% of the time, and for them to make between $0.05 and $0.10 per dollar bet. Steer your students in the direction you think would be best if a student is reaching for the stars but has really short arms, explain that the probability calculations involved with their game are almost impossible to calculate by hand and suggest alternatives. Thomas Young Woodstock Academy Woodstock, CT

The Casino Table Every student needs a game board to play on. The board needs to contain the game rules, payouts, and places to interact with the game (spots to place cards, area to roll dice). Every good game has a catchy title. Thomas Young Woodstock Academy Woodstock, CT

Game Day They ve put in the work, revised their games, probabilities, and payouts countless times, documented every step of the journey in their casino log, and still found the time to sit down at the arts and crafts table to make an attractive game board (remember: no glitter Mr. Young is allergic!). So now it s time to relax and play the games. Thomas Young Woodstock Academy Woodstock, CT