Teaching students to calculate risk could provide more benefits than simply improving their mathematics. Helen Whitty outlines a Powerhouse Museum online program with broad connections to the wider curriculum.

Mathematics is not just a ritualistic thing where black marks are moved around on a piece of paper—it's a way of thinking and creative problem solving.   (Seymour Papert)

The Powerhouse Museum's new online education program called Gambling: calculating the risk provides teachers with an innovative tool to teach mathematics within a real-world context and potentially connects this teaching with other syllabuses (Commerce, PDHPE) and into the broader school curriculum covering social skills, money management, seeking help and healthy lifestyles.

If you take the view that drug and sex education encourages anti-social behaviour then read no further. The developers were very conscious of the dangers of training young gamblers but felt that gambling, as a significant social issue, warranted some closer attention within a formal learning environment. Judged on expenditure (losses) per capita, Australians are the world's leading gamblers. Gambling is one of the most distinctive aspects of Australian life. Over 80% of adult Australians participate in gambling. Expenditure on gambling has trebled in the last 15 years. At $15 billion per year ($1000 per adult; $1200 per adult in NSW), Australia's gambling losses exceed its household savings.

A study undertaken by the Queensland Treasury (see www.aare.edu.au/02pap/cur02320.htm) points out that those under 18 years of age are most at risk for developing addictive patterns of behaviour, including problem gambling. Yet young people are unlikely to have the skills and strategies to manage their gambling and avoid personal and financial difficulties.

The Gambling: calculating the risk website rewards sound mathematical thinking with insights into the improbability of winning. It debunks many of the social myths surrounding gaming, while acknowledging the role gambling plays in our society. It positions gambling within the leisure industry, while encouraging students to make informed decisions on the best use of their leisure time and money.

The website repurposes a computer interactive developed by Sydney's Powerhouse Museum for the Gambling in Australia; thrills, spills and social ills exhibition. After a six-month display, a smaller exhibition is touring to New South Wales regional galleries and museums.

Gambling is an activity found in most human societies. Dice games are especially antique, featuring in most ancient cultures including Egypt, China, Greece and Rome. Cards originated in China, Korea and Japan, and were apparently introduced to Europe by Marco Polo. As play replaced ritual as the major use of these artefacts, gambling heightened the role of the players and of chance.

During the Enlightenment, mathematicians and philosophers developed the discipline of probability. Initially created as a means of understanding chance and randomness in gaming, probability laid the basis for the intellectual revolutions of modern times. In modern times the worldviews of gambler and scientist, punter and philosopher have converged. Meanwhile, the organisation of modern life via markets and speculation has made chance an organising principle of societies.

Yet the assumptions made about the likelihood of winning various legal betting games are unrealistic and misunderstood.

For example, the chance of success in various types of gaming are documented below.

Type of game	Chance of success
NSW Lotto	1 in 7,059,052
OZ Lotto	1 in 8,145,060
Powerball	1 in 54,979,155
6 from 38 Pools	1 in 2,760,681
$2 Lottery	1 in 180,000
$5 Lottery	1 in 140,000
$2 Scratch Lottery	1 in 4.9 (of winning something, up to $100,000)
$5 Scratch Lottery	1 in 3.3 (of winning something, up to $250,000)

The website is in two main parts. The interactive game is broken down into four sub-games that range in mathematical complexity and cover a broad range of commonplace environments:

1. Instant Scratchies (newsagency)
2. Lotto (newsagency)
3. Pokies (pub/hotel/club)
4. Roulette (casino)

The Library is an information repository for more detailed information and teacher tools. Each 'place' can be accessed off the graphic 'main street'.

Playing the games demonstrates how probability works in real-world activities to students in Stages 4 to 5. It is fun to play yet emphasises the likelihood of losing and the financial consequences of long-term play. Consequences are explored in terms of impact on the individual as well as the community. While this project is student focussed we believe it embraces teachers, parents, carers and the local community in its audience reach.

Each sub-game was carefully chosen. For example, poker machines were chosen, as they are perhaps the most controversial gambling medium. Poker machines account for more than 75% of the amounts gambled and lost in New South Wales. In every state where poker machines have been legalised, they have quickly dominated gaming expenditure.

Each sub-game has its own difficulty curve to allow the younger users to start playing and scaffold to the next four levels. It will encourage older and more able students to perform the more advanced mathematics. Each game will have five levels of difficulty. Starting with the most rudimentary of mathematical challenges and mathematics, each round will become more complex and offer deeper insights. The base requirements for each game are that the first round of each game be able to be played by 12 year olds.

Each round will consist of a multiple choice challenge, requiring the user to answer a (randomly generated) multiple choice question with hints and answers provided. The game is interspersed with 'Did you Knows' describing a particularly interesting fact about gambling and the game being played, from a cultural or EDUCATIONAL perspective.

Personal stories are found throughout and illustrate the social impacts of gambling. Selected stories will be given in full in the Library section. Read about characters like Lucky whose family sit around the TV watching the Lotto call every Wednesday. Lucky steals money from his parents' bedroom to support his new found gambling activity; or Yaya and Christina who make a deal to save money instead of spending on Scratchies.

The website is designed for:

• teachers and students in Australian secondary schools (with a special emphasis on NSW curriculums)
• students in colleges and universities studying introductory subjects in statistics, psychology and health studies
• welfare workers and counsellors working in non-government institutions
• agencies supporting the formal education sector such as G Line.

The website was developed with the assistance of experts in the field including Professor John Croucher (Macquarie Graduate School of Management and creator of the popular statistics and gaming course now taught internationally) and Sue Thompson, consultant and author of a number of secondary mathematical publications.

The media and online environment proposed in this project will:

• Provide access to rich sources of information
• Allow an opportunity to manipulate real data
• Encourage meaningful interactions with and across content
• Be dynamic and respond to the players' efforts
• Bring players together to challenge, support or respond to each other.

The exhibition, website, print publication and associated public programs were given financial assistance by the New South Wales Government from the Casino Community Benefit Fund. Visit the website at www.powerhousemuseum.com/gambling

Helen Whitty is education services coordinator at the
Powerhouse Museum.

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EQ Summer 2004 © Curriculum Corporation

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