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Restoring a six-digit house number after two digits fall

Question

A house displays the six digits 1,2,2,5,7,71,2,2,5,7,7 in that order, i.e. the number 122577122577. A storm knocks off two of the six digits, chosen uniformly at random among all pairs of positions. The owner, who has forgotten the number, puts the two fallen digits back into the two empty positions in a random order. What is the probability that the house again reads 122577122577?

Short answer

1730\tfrac{17}{30}. Of the (62)=15\binom62=15 equally likely pairs, two (the two 22s or the two 77s) consist of equal digits and are always restored correctly; for the other 1313 pairs the owner is right half the time. So the probability is 215+1315⋅12=1730\tfrac{2}{15}+\tfrac{13}{15}\cdot\tfrac12=\tfrac{17}{30}.

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

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