September 21, 2015

Stat of the Week Competition: September 19 – 25 2015

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Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

  • Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday September 25 2015.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of September 19 – 25 2015 inclusive.
  • Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

The fine print:

  • Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
  • The judges’ decision will be final.
  • The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
  • Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
  • Individual posts on Stats Chat are just the opinions of their authors, who can criticise anyone who they feel deserves it, but the Stat of the Week award involves the Department of Statistics more officially. For that reason, we will not award Stat of the Week for a statistic coming from anyone at the University of Auckland outside the Statistics department. You can still nominate and discuss them, but the nomination won’t be eligible for the prize.
  • Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
  • The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
  • The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
  • The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.
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Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »

Nominations

  • avatar
    Sam Passmore

    Statistic: The TAB runs a competition where you predict the winner of every match in the RWC with a prize of 1 million dollars, called the million dollar punt.

    After the first round here is how the public’s guesses panned out:

    Start – 47,724 entries
    After England vs Fiji – 35,730
    After Tonga vs Georgia – 452
    After Ireland vs Canada – 439
    After Japan vs South Africa – 2
    After France vs Italy – 1
    After USA vs Samoa – 0
    Source: TAB Email
    Date: 21/09/2015

    Everyone likes to see the underdogs win, but some underdogs seem more popular than others. ~12 thousand people picking Fiji to beat England, which is around 1/4 of the entries. 98% of remaining entries picked Tonga to beat Georgia (Although Tonga were favorites here according to David Scott), and only 2 of the last 439 people picked Japan to beat SA (0.4%).

    It is possible that some of the 25% supported underdogs Fiji would have also supported Japan. However, I suggest this may show an inverse distance relationship to underdog support!

    Ganbare nippon!!

    9 years ago