Question

Elba has a quarter, a dime, and a nickel. If tails comes up at least twice, Steve wins. Otherwise Elba wins. Find probability (Elba wins).

Answer 1

Hi there!

The easiest way to think about this is what cases Elba will win. We know that Steve will win if tails comes up at least twice. He will lose if tails comes up only once or 0 times. This means that heads will either come up twice or 3 times, meaning Elba will win if tails comes up at least twice.

Thus, looking at this, we can see (as heads and tails is a 50 50 chance) that the probability is the same because the situation in which they win is the same, but flipped (from heads and tails).

Thus, this means that Elba wins 1/2 of the time.

Hope this helps! Feel free to let me know if you have any questions about this specific question.