This is part of our collection of favourite rich tasks arranged by topic.
If you are a teacher, you can find the whole collection on our Secondary Curriculum teacher page.
Alternatively, if you are a student, you'll find the same problems on our Secondary Curriculum student page.
Which of these games would you play to give yourself the best possible chance of winning a prize?
Here are two games you can play. Which offers the better chance of winning?
Imagine a room full of people who keep flipping coins until they get a tail. Will anyone get six heads in a row?
When two closely matched teams play each other, what is the most likely result?
Chris and Jo put two red and four blue ribbons in a box. They each pick a ribbon from the box without looking. Jo wins if the two ribbons are the same colour. Is the game fair?
If everyone in your class picked a number from 1 to 225, do you think any two people would pick the same number?
Can you work out the probability of winning the Mathsland National Lottery?
In this follow-up to the problem Odds and Evens, we invite you to analyse a probability situation in order to find the general solution for a fair game.
Can you work out which spinners were used to generate the frequency charts?
