71B - Your chances of winning the lottery

[RonHudson(USA)]

When the California lottery started one of the local news guys said "Your chance of winning is about the same as flipping a coin the same way 25 times in a row" Hmmm How many flips might that be?

10 DELAY.1

20 DESTROY ALL

30 H=0 @ T=0 @ R=0 @ M=0 @ N = RND > RND

40 'NEQ':R=0 @ X = FLAG(0,NOT FLAG(0))

50 'THROW':L=N @ N = RND > RND

60 IF N THEN H=H+1 ELSE T=T+1

70 IF N<>L THEN GOTO 'NEQ'

80 R=R+1 @ DISP M;H+T;INT(100*R/M)

90 IF R>M THEN M=R @ DISP M;H+T

100 IF M<25 THEN GOTO 'THROW'

110 DISP H/T;H+T;H;T @ STOP

You will probably need fresh batteries for this one :^) I have not been able to let it run to completion yet.. I keep needing my 71 for other things.

I am accepting ideas for stuff to write...

Edited: 24 Sept 2007, 3:04 p.m.

[Egan Ford]

Here is a faster version:

10 DISP .5^25

[Chuck Sommer]

If you flip a coin 25 times in a row, then you flip it 25 times.

On the other hand if you want to calculate the odds of flipping a coin and it comes up Heads 25 times in a row, then it is simply

1 in 2^25 = about 1 in 33.55 million. If you want to calculate the odds of flipping a coin and it coming up the same 25 times in a row, then it would be 1 in 2^24 or about 1 in 16.78 million.

Any Help?

[Ren]

I'm sure you've all heard this one before...

Your odds of winning the lottery are the same,
whether or not you buy a ticket.

Ren

dona nobis pacem

[Namir]

Ren,

I look at it this way. The chance of me keeping my lottery money is 99.999999999999999999999999999999999%. If I do this many many times over many many years, the total savings come out to winning a small lottery ... at a near 100%!!!

Namir