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posted by  Danielle83 on 2/7/2008 11:05:32 AM  |  status: Live  

Probability of Winning. Need help!!

Course Textbook Chapter Problem
Statistics and Probability N/A N/A N/A
Question Details:
Consider a game where four coins are tossed: a penny, a nickel, and two dimes. A contestant wins the coins that land head-side up: e.g. if the penny, the nickel, and one of the dimes land heads up, then the contestant wins 16 cents.
a) what is the probability distribution of the winnings?
b) What assumptions did you make to calculate this distribution?
c) How much can contestants expect to win on average if the game is played a large number of times?

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posted by Hongliang Zhang on 2/25/2008 2:47:20 PM  |  status: Live
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Response Details:
a) We know that there is a total of the distribution is out of 16 [2*(3C0+3C1+3C2+3C3)].

The distribution after some thought is:
26 25 21 20 16 15 11 10 6 5 1 0
1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1
Top row is total value, bottom is occurrence (out of 16)

b) We assumed that all coins are fair and the outcome of each coin is independent of the others
c) E{X)= (1/16)[26+25+21+20+2*16+2*15+2*11+2*10+6+5+1+0]= 13 cents
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posted by A. Nonny Mouse on 6/19/2008 5:56:01 PM  |  status: Live
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Response Details:
Let X count the winnings:
 
X = 0 if none of the coins land heads up: P(X = 0) = 1/16.
X = 1 if only the penny lands heads up: P(X = 1) = 1/16.
X = 5 if only the nickel lands heads up: P(X = 5) = 1/16.
X = 6 if only the nickel and the penny land heads up: P(X = 6) = 1/16.
X = 10 if only one of the dimes land heads up--there are two ways for this to happen, so P(X = 10) = 1/8.
X = 11 if one dime and the penny both land heads up--there are two ways for this to happen, so P(X = 11) = 1/8.
X = 15 if one dime and the nickel both land heads up--there are two ways for this to happen, so P(X = 15) = 1/8.
X = 16 if one dime, the nickel and the penny all land heads up--there are two ways for this to happen, so P(X = 16) = 1/8.
X = 20 if both dimes land heads up: P(X = 20) = 1/16.
X = 21 if both dimes and the penny land heads up: P(X = 21) = 1/16.
X = 25 if both dimes and the nickel land heads up: P(X = 25) = 1/16.
X = 26 if all the coins land heads up: P(X = 26) = 1/16.
 
B.)  I assumed that each of the coins was fair and that the result of the tossing of one coin is independent of the results of the tossing of any of the other coins.
 
C.)  We take the probabilities of each of the values of X times those values of X and then find the sum of those products:
 
1/16 * 0 + 1/16 * 1 + 1/16 * 5 + 1/16 * 6 + 1/8 * 10 + 1/8 * 11 + 1/8 * 15 + 1/8 * 16 + 1/16 * 20 + 1/16 * 21 + 1/16 * 25 + 1/16 * 26 = 208/16 = 13, so a contestant can expect to win 13 cents on average if the game is played a large number of times.
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posted by harishbatana on 10/7/2008 7:41:13 AM  |  status: Live
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Response Details:
There are only 16 events that can occur.
notation Heads - 1, Tails - 0
Penny  Nickel First Dimme Second Dimme Amount Won Probabilty

1

1

1

1 26 1/16
1 1 1 0 16 1/16
1 1 0 1 16 1/16
1 1 0 0 6 1/16
1 0 1 1 21 1/16
1 0 1 0 11 1/16
1 0 0 1 11 1/16
1 0 0 0 1 1/16
0 1 1 1 25 1/16
0 1 1 0 15 1/16
0 1 0 1 15 1/16
0 1 0 0 5 1/16
0 0 1 1 20 1/16
0 0 1 0 10 1/16
0 0 0 1 10 1/16
0 0 0 0 0 1/16
 
Assumption Obviously all coins are fair.
 
And Hence the average Wining Amount if the game is played infinite times is Σ[wining amount for nth  event * P(nth event)]
 
 
I.E.,   1/16(26+16+16+6+21+11+11+1+25+15+15+5+20+10+10+0) = 208/16 = 13
 
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