As a kid I had another theory: I thought perhaps the symbols had different weights and caused the dreidel to not spin evenly. This was a big deal: We’d play not just with pennies but with dimes and quarters and whatever else we had, and middle school adrenaline and competitiveness are not easy fires to control.
“Cheaters have lined their pockets with our gelt”: math educator Ben Orlin takes a deep, fun, illustrated dive into the probability models of dreidel-spinning, a beloved Hanukkah tradition.
