Saturday, June 9, 2012

List #009 - Monopoly Probabilities

The well-famed Parker Brothers game of Monopoly features a board of 40 spaces traversed via rolling two six-sided dice, with the goal to amass and upgrade properties towards being the last player to not go bankrupt.

Using basic math knowledge, we could create a table of all possible outcomes of rolling two dice. Results will show that the number most-rolled is seven (1/6 chance), the numbers least rolled are two and twelve (1/36 chance, each), and doubles are rolled 1/6 of the time.

But determining the space we will end up on at the end of a person's roll of the dice isn't just based on the roll of the dice. If a person lands on a Chance or Community Chest space, does he stay there or will he move? Does the person stay in jail for a short time or long time? Did the person already roll doubles once or twice before the roll?

Computer scientist Truman Collins takes this and more into account in creating several tables of data. These include long-term and short-term probabilities on landing on a particular space, the average income per opponent roll per property, and the average amount of opponent rolls to recoup all costs. If the numbers are not your thing, enjoy the list of spaces on a Monopoly board.

http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml

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