For each conference game, there are only two possible outcomes. Either the team wins it, or they lose. The probability of winning a game is independent of any other game. This means that the binomial probability distribution is used to solve this question.

Binomial probability distribution

The binomial probability is the probability of exactly x successes on n repeated trials, and X can only have two outcomes.

$P(X = x) = C_{n,x}.p^{x}.(1-p)^{n-x}$

In which $C_{n,x}$ is the number of different combinations of x objects from a set of n elements, given by the following formula.

$C_{n,x} = \frac{n!}{x!(n-x)!}$

And p is the probability of X happening.

A football team has a probability of .75 of winning when playing any of the other four teams in its conference.

The probability means that $p = 0.75$ , and four games means that $n = 4$

If the games are independent, what is the probability the team wins all its conference games?

This is P(X = 4). So

$P(X = x) = C_{n,x}.p^{x}.(1-p)^{n-x}$

$P(X = 4) = C_{4,4}.(0.75)^{4}.(0.25)^{0} = 0.3164$

0.3164 = 31.64% probability the team wins all its conference games

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3 years ago