How high can you jump on the moon? Not 6 times as high, not even close. Do longer games favor the stronger player? Not necessarily. Are all games equally exciting? Yes, in a fundamental sense. What about the well known two envelope problem? Can you beat chance alone? Yes. And finally, can you make a good bar bet out of Bell's inequality, at the same time demonstrating the nonexistence of a local reality?
Thomas Cover is a Professor jointly in Statistics and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He is a coauthor of the widely used textbook, "Elements of Information Theory" and is a past recipient of the Claude E. Shannon award in information theory. He has a long history of interest in gambling and sports statistics and was one of the first successful users of counting in blackjack. He served as the contract statistician for the California State Lottery for six years. Author of over a 100 papers, he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.