To determine which of two people gets a prize, a coin is flipped twice. If the flips are a Head and then a Tail, the first player wins. If the flips are a Tail and then a Head, the second player wins. However, if both coins land the same way, the flips don’t count and whole the process starts over.
Assume that on each flip, a Head comes up with (constant) probability p, regardless of what happened on other flips. Find the probability that the first player wins.
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
chances of flip s={hh,ht,th},where first player wins for the chance of {ht},the player loses for the chance {th},the chance {hh} is not under count and is restarts the loop,so s={ht,th} probability of wining =1/2=0.5