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Only the number seven left unchosen

Question

Seven people each pick a number uniformly at random from {1,2,…,7}\{1,2,\dots,7\}, independently. Given that no one picked 77, what is the probability that 77 is the only number in the set that no one picked?

Short answer

35648\tfrac{35}{648}. Conditioned on avoiding 77, all 676^7 choices from {1,…,6}\{1,\dots,6\} are equally likely. Using all six values with seven people means one value is chosen twice: (72)\binom72 ways to pick the pair, 6!6! ways to assign the six values, so 21⋅72067=35648\tfrac{21\cdot720}{6^7}=\tfrac{35}{648}.

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

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