My little betting odds piece seems to have attracted more attention than I would have thought. (See Slate article.) Great minds searching for mathematical solecisms may have independently focused on Safire's OpEd, but, contrary to Dan Seligman (Slate piece again), I don't think Safire is innumerate in the least. Although I intended my piece to be somewhat whimsical, I wanted to at least hint at three serious points: if Safire's assessment was an estimate of probabilities (which it should have been since he is a pundit and not a bookie), then the probabilities are wrong; even if, as is arguable, he was writing as a bookie, the profit margin was excessive; and the relationship between odds and probability can be misleading (especially in medical and crime reporting).

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