The Unsinkable Titanic Thompson. Question about odds on page 142

[h_ven]

A friend of mine introduced me to a book called "The Unsinkable Titanic Thompson" A true story of a world super star: golfer, gambler, hustler, con man. He won millions in fascinating schemes that stagger teh imagination.

The book refers to Lee Trevino and Johnny Moss. Would recommend this book to any gambler.

Anyways, on page 142 they start talking about some odds:

"Throw up one coin and it's even money you'll call it right. Throw up three coins and the odds of calling them correctly goes to five-to-three. Throw up three at once, call two heads and one tails, and you're looking at six-to-one odds. Call five coins and it's eleven-to-five the side you call will come up.

Odds of throwing an ace on the first roll of the dice are eight-to-three. Your best bet is throw the dice four times. To roll a 12 with the dice takes 24 throws..."


If I'm not mistaken, if you throw up three coins, wouldn't the odds of calling them correctly be .5*.5*.5 = .125? What percentage is 5:3

The other probabilities don't look right either, thoughts and comments?