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Best place in a queue for a birthday-match prize

Question

A shop announces a prize for the first customer in the queue whose birthday matches that of somebody ahead of them in the queue. Birthdays are independent and uniform over 365365 days, and you know nobody's birthday. Which position in the queue maximises your chance of winning?

Short answer

2020th. At position nn you win if the n−1n-1 people ahead all have distinct birthdays and yours matches one of them: P(n)=n−1365∏k=1n−2(1−k365)P(n)=\tfrac{n-1}{365}\prod_{k=1}^{n-2}\left(1-\tfrac k{365}\right). Comparing P(n+1)/P(n)=n(366−n)365(n−1)P(n+1)/P(n)=\tfrac{n(366-n)}{365(n-1)} with 1 shows the maximum is at n=20n=20 (about 3.23%).

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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