A particular biased coin has a chance of landing tails when flipped. What is the expected number of coin flips that must occur before four tails are tossed in a row?
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If x is the expected number of tosses it takes to get four tails in a row, and the probability of tossing a tails is 4 1 , then we can form the equation
x = 4 3 ( x + 1 ) + 1 6 3 ( x + 2 ) + 6 4 3 ( x + 3 ) + 2 5 6 3 ( x + 4 ) + 6 4 1
⟹ x = 3 4 0 .