Skip to content

Revolver with one bullet and no re-spin

Question

Two players share a six-chamber revolver holding a single bullet. The cylinder is spun once at the start and never again. They alternate pulling the trigger, your friend going first, and whoever fires the bullet loses. What is your probability of winning?

Short answer

1/21/2. After the single spin the bullet is equally likely to be in any of the six chambers. Your friend fires chambers 1,3,51,3,5 and you fire 2,4,62,4,6, so you survive exactly when the bullet sits in an odd-numbered chamber: probability 12\tfrac12.

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

See the hint and the full worked solution in the question bank (free account).

Open the worked solution

Lessons behind this question

Start with a free lesson: Probability Fundamentals is part of a free topic. Create a free account, no card needed, to read it in full with worked solutions.

Read it free