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Red probability on draw 11 when black turns red

Question

An urn starts with r>0r>0 red and b>0b>0 black balls. Balls are drawn one at a time: a red ball is put back, while a black ball is removed and a red ball is put in its place. Let f(r,b,n)f(r,b,n) be the probability that the nnth draw is red. Compute f(8,12,11)f(8,12,11) to two decimal places.

Short answer

About 0.640.64. The urn always has N=r+bN=r+b balls, and each draw turns a black into red with probability (blacks)/NN, so the expected black count shrinks by the factor 1−1N1-\tfrac1N per draw. Hence f=1−bN(1−1N)n−1=1−0.6⋅0.9510≈0.64f=1-\tfrac{b}{N}\left(1-\tfrac1N\right)^{n-1}=1-0.6\cdot0.95^{10}\approx0.64.

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

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