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? asked in Science & MathematicsMathematics · 5 years ago

A Stats question?

Suppose you were playing a dice game where the highest roll wins. Which method would give you a better chance:

Method A: Roll just one die, then add one to that roll.

Method B: Roll two dice, then use the higher roll of the two.

4 Answers

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  • 5 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Method A:

    The outcomes are 2 through 7 with equal probability:

    X | P(X)

    2 | 1/6

    3 | 1/6

    4 | 1/6

    5 | 1/6

    6 | 1/6

    7 | 1/6

    E(X) = (2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7) / 6 = 27/6 = 9/2 = 4.5

    Method B:

    36 outcomes:

    \ 1 2 3 4 5 6

    ..----------------

    1| 1 2 3 4 5 6

    2| 2 2 3 4 5 6

    3| 3 3 3 4 5 6

    4| 4 4 4 4 5 6

    5| 5 5 5 5 5 6

    6| 6 6 6 6 6 6

    X | P(X)

    1 | 1/36

    2 | 3/36

    3 | 5/36

    4 | 7/36

    5 | 9/36

    6 | 11/36

    E(X) = (1*1 + 2*3 + 3*5 + 4*7 + 5*9 + 6*11)/36

    E(X) = 161/36

    E(X) = 4.47222222222

    Answer:

    Though just slightly better, I'd choose method A with an expected outcome of 4.5 compared to 4.472222..

  • 5 years ago

    A's avg score = 4.5

    B's avg score = 6*P(6) + 5*P(5) + ...

    P(6) = 1 - (5/6)^2

    P(5) = 2(1/6)(4/6) + (1/6)^2

    P(4) = 2(1/6)(3/6) + (1/6)^2

    ...

    B's avg score = 4.472

    So if the averages are a true indicator, A will have the slightly higher chance of winning. But let's see.

    P(A > B) = P(A=7) + P(A=6 & B<6) + ... = 1/6 * [1 + (5/6)^2 + (4/6)^2 + ... + (1/6)^2] = 91/216

    P(A = B) = P(both 6) + ... + P(both 2) = 1/6 * [P(B=6) + ... + P(B=2)] = 35/216

    P(A < B) = 1 - P(A>B) - P(A=B) = 90/216

    91 > 90 so A is the better method.

    If the players roll until there is no tie, then A will win 91/181 = 50.276% of the time.

  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    The number of possible outcomes is small enough to analyze in a spreadsheet by listing them all, so that's what I did.

    Method A gives you an average of 4.5. That's easy to see since the expectation for rolling one die is 3.5, and adding 1 gives you 4.5.

    Method B gives you an average of 4.5 - 1/36 = 4.472222. That's a little more difficult to calculate theoretically. I haven't really thought about how to do that. I just listed all 36 rolls, took the larger value, and averaged it to get the result, so since it looked at the entire sample space, I know it's correct. Perhaps someone can contribute a theoretical method for calculating that.

    So Method A gives you a slightly higher average score.

    I also looked at a head-to-head match up. If two people play, and one uses Method A and the other uses Method B, then there are 216 possible outcomes (6 for A, 36 for B, 6x36=216 for both), and player A:

    wins 91 out of 216

    ties 35 out of 216

    loses 90 out of 216

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