World Cup 2018 betting problem
You are a staunch football fan and you want to predict every match result in present World Cup. Assuming in every match only 5 goals can be scored, what is the probability that all of the scores you bet will be correct? (in the playoffs draw is considered when the match ends with the penalties, so include draw results also in the playoffs)
Additional task: count the possibility of four teams finishing the group stage with the same amount of points.
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1 solution
Complicated as it may seem at a first sight, the problem requires only simple maths. If only 5 goals can be scored per game, there are 21 different results. Next, we increase that result to the 64th power (number of matches during World Cup). We increase the number of results because all the matches are independent events and occur parallelly. Now, without calculations, we can assume that the probability of betting all scores (1 in 21^64) is closest to pointing one particular atom in the universe (1 in 10^80).