Talk:Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy)

question
On the article on Dutch book itself, the text states, that if the bookmaker sets the odds/price o, that he gains no matter what the outcome, is said to have made a Dutch book. This text suggests the obverse. One of them must be wrong, unless I an reading this wrong. --Lokimaros 15:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

clarity
I think the wording of this article is far more opaque than it needs to be. The concept is not so difficult that this kind of verbiage is really necessary, IMHO — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.103.77.181 (talk • contribs)

I agree. In particular the section on the "very trivial example" is worded in a very opaque way. What is a set price? Why does it need to be mentioned? Surely singular "opponent" is not suitable. A Dutch Book usually involves bets against multiple opponents. Why mention negative price? Surely that can be thought of as simply betting the other way. "Extract a paid promise"?? "A certain contigency"? Unecessarily vague and verbose language. --Davyker (talk) 17:38, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Red Sox Example
As of 07 SEP 2008, It is not clear from that part of the article if we are to assume that the next World Series will be between the Yankees and the Red Sox -- which is impossible, since both are American League teams, and the World Series, by definition, is played between one American League team and one National League team. (Reading more carefully, I see that we are NOT to assume this, but it takes a very careful reading to do so, which means the language can be improved.)

Also, why would "you" agree to buy back the two tickets when "the other guy" buys the more-conveniently-priced "OR" ticket? Is there any obligation for you to do so? What actual bookmaker allows this?

Anyway, agree with the case that this article could be presented in a much simpler fashion. elpincha (talk) 16:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You're talking nonsense here. There's no assumption that it's between those two teams at all!  The fact is that in next year's world series, either the Red Sox or the Yankees or some other team will win. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:27, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merger with "De Finetti's game"
I believe the logical place to make any such merger would be by including "De Finetti's game" under the "Operational subjective probabilities as gambling odds" section. However, introducing the more complex example of "De Finetti's game" would only make it harder to follow the argument about the election bet with payoffs $1 or $0. Rewriting the material of one or both to avoid such confusion would be a non-trivial task, although I'm quite happy for anyone to try it &mdash; provided they can do so clearly. I conclude that, for purposes of exposition, the two articles may be clearer if they continue to stand alone.

Thus, I think the optimal approach to improving these two articles would be to keep them separate, but to move the reference to "De Finetti's game" to the end of the section "Operational subjective probabilities as gambling odds". yoyo (talk) 05:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Two different things being said; another thing not being said
At the start of talking about John winning the election, the author says "one wants to set the price of a promise to pay $1 if John wins, $0 if not". The fair price would simply be $p, where p is the probability of John winning. So $0.125. But later the author appears to have been meaning to say "the payout of a $1 wager" which is very different from "the price of a promise of a $1 payout".

--Davyker (talk) 17:53, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Additionally, it is unclear what collection of wagers the author is implying is a Dutch Book in the "less trivial and more instructive" example. --Davyker (talk) 18:19, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Merge
Should this be merged with the article on Dutch books? Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)