Die rolls that continue on even faces and heads
Question
A game uses a fair six-sided die and a fair coin. Each time you roll the die you are paid the number shown. An odd roll ends the game immediately. After an even roll you toss the coin: tails ends the game, while heads sends you back to roll the die again, with the same rules applying to every later roll.
What are your expected total winnings?
Short answer
. Condition on the first roll. An odd roll pays on average and stops; an even roll pays on average and then, with probability , the whole game restarts. So , giving .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Conditional Expectation and Variance Revisited
- Counting and Combinatorics
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
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