Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

An anomaly concerning ties in lotto-like games

  • Stony Brook University

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Consider the following game: Each of the n players independently picks a number from 1 through m according to a given probability distribution, and the winner is the player who selected the lowest of the n numbers. A tie occurs if two or more players both selected the lowest number. Surprisingly, contrary to intuition for certain distributions (including one which arises in a version of Bingo, the probability of a tie does not increase montonically. However, as we show the tie probability does increase monotonically when the probability distribution is monotonically non-increasing.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)55-59
Number of pages5
JournalApplied Mathematics Letters
Volume6
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1993

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'An anomaly concerning ties in lotto-like games'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this