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Best queue position for a shared-birthday prize

Question

A cinema gives a free ticket to the first person in the queue whose birthday is the same as someone already ahead of them in the queue. Birthdays are independent and uniform over 365365 days. You may pick your place in line. Which position maximises your chance of winning?

Short answer

Position 2020. Position nn wins if the first n−1n-1 birthdays are all different and yours matches one of them: pn=n−1365∏k=0n−2365−k365p_n=\tfrac{n-1}{365}\prod_{k=0}^{n-2}\tfrac{365-k}{365}. The ratio pn+1pn=n(366−n)365(n−1)\tfrac{p_{n+1}}{p_n}=\tfrac{n(366-n)}{365(n-1)} exceeds 11 only while n≤19n\le19, so the maximum (≈3.2%\approx3.2\%) is at n=20n=20.

Adapted from Zhou, A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews, sec. 4.3 Conditional Probability and Bayes' Formula, 'Birthday line', p.75; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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