Question

I need help in excel finding a formula that will tell me that if I get 4 heads in a row i win for this question.You are going to play a game where you bet a dollar and get to flip a coin ten times. If you get four heads in a row, you win. If you make the tenth flip without getting four heads in a row, you lose. Run this game ten thousand times. Approximately what is the probability that you will win? All the other work is done.

Answer 1

the sample space for this seems a bit complicated....for considering u do get 4 heads (whether in row or not) there is probability of 7/10c4....and this doesnt take into the account where u get result with number of heads not exactly equal to 4.

Answer 2

i just need to know how to tell if i win.
other than going through all 10k games

Answer 3

7/10c4 is the probability you get 4 heads in a row ...considering the part where you get only 4 heads....for other cases you will have to take into account the values obtained for number of head not exactly equal to 4

Answer 4

im doing this question in excel so i have to simulate all the games

i all that done. if u want to see what i have ill attach it. I dont really know how to explain it other than i need some what to search my document to see how many times heads is 4 in a row with having to go through all 10000 games

Answer 5

6.25% to get four heads in a row out of 4 tries, but that's not much help...

Answer 6

This requires a little re-casting and redefining. I think we have to limit the experiment to the accomplishment of the condition "4 heads in a row". For example, when you get "4 heads in a row", you quit, you don't flip the rest. Otherwise, there is the risk of getting "4 heads in a row" twice in the same sequence of 10 flips. So, once we achieve "4 heads in a row", all other flips up to 10 are deemed "tails".

"4 heads in a row" must START on flip 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7.

Answer 7

is there a formula that will count how many times heads comes up in a row or do i have to do it all manually

Answer 8

I did it rather manually. In this way, I could enforce my definition of "giving up".

Answer 9

there are 7 chances per game to win. Each chance has a 6.25% chance to win. your odds of winning once per game is 43.75%

Answer 10

Way too big. It's a little under 1/4.

Answer 11

The "chances" are not independent.

For example, if you roll HHHT, by the time you figure out that Chance #1 is gone, Chances 2, 3, and 4 are also gone!

Answer 12

Since we can, constructing a tree is simple enough. There are 1024 possible outcomes. 251 have a 4-head string. 251/1024 = 24.5117%

I thought it interesting that of the 128 with a 4-head string starting in 1, 2, or 3, there are 21 that muster a 2nd 4-head string. This includes an 8-head string as two 4-head strings.

Answer 13

is there a function to find the 4 heads in a row if I did rand(0.1) with .5^ being heads

Answer 14

No. it is WAY more complicated than that.

I would suggest, =RANDBETWEEN(0,1) -- 0 = Tails, 1 = Heads. Simple as that.