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Chance of being dealt three of a kind

Question

Five cards are dealt from a well-shuffled 5252-card deck. What is the probability that the hand is exactly three of a kind, meaning three cards share one rank and the other two cards have two further, different ranks?

Short answer

88/4165≈0.021188/4165\approx0.0211. Choose the triple's rank and suits (13⋅413\cdot4), the two other ranks ((122)=66\binom{12}{2}=66) and a suit for each (424^2). That gives 54,91254{,}912 hands out of (525)=2,598,960\binom{52}{5}=2{,}598{,}960.

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

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