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Main Authors: Camellini, Francesco, Ghantous, Wissam, Lanocita, Andrea M., Mangiapanello, Layna E., Miller, Steven J., Tresch, Garrett, Yildirim, Elif Z.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.12262
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author Camellini, Francesco
Ghantous, Wissam
Lanocita, Andrea M.
Mangiapanello, Layna E.
Miller, Steven J.
Tresch, Garrett
Yildirim, Elif Z.
author_facet Camellini, Francesco
Ghantous, Wissam
Lanocita, Andrea M.
Mangiapanello, Layna E.
Miller, Steven J.
Tresch, Garrett
Yildirim, Elif Z.
contents Suppose we have $n$ dice, each with $s$ faces (assume $s\geq n$). On the first turn, roll all of them, and remove from play those that rolled an $n$. Roll all of the remaining dice. In general, if at a certain turn you are left with $k$ dice, roll all of them and remove from play those that rolled a $k$. The game ends when you are left with no dice to roll. For $n,s \in \mathbb{N} \setminus \{0\}$ such that $s \geq n$, let $Y_n^s$ be the random variable for the number of turns to finish the game rolling $n$ dice with $s$ faces. We find recursive and non-recursive solutions for $\mathbb{E}(Y_n^{s})$ and $\mathrm{Var}(Y_n^{s})$, and bounds for both values. Moreover, we show that $Y_n^{s}$ can also be modeled as the maximum of a sequence of i.i.d. geometrically distributed random variables. Although, as far as we know, this game hasn't been studied before, similar problems have.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_12262
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On a Roll Again: Analysis of a Dice Removal Game
Camellini, Francesco
Ghantous, Wissam
Lanocita, Andrea M.
Mangiapanello, Layna E.
Miller, Steven J.
Tresch, Garrett
Yildirim, Elif Z.
Probability
62G30
Suppose we have $n$ dice, each with $s$ faces (assume $s\geq n$). On the first turn, roll all of them, and remove from play those that rolled an $n$. Roll all of the remaining dice. In general, if at a certain turn you are left with $k$ dice, roll all of them and remove from play those that rolled a $k$. The game ends when you are left with no dice to roll. For $n,s \in \mathbb{N} \setminus \{0\}$ such that $s \geq n$, let $Y_n^s$ be the random variable for the number of turns to finish the game rolling $n$ dice with $s$ faces. We find recursive and non-recursive solutions for $\mathbb{E}(Y_n^{s})$ and $\mathrm{Var}(Y_n^{s})$, and bounds for both values. Moreover, we show that $Y_n^{s}$ can also be modeled as the maximum of a sequence of i.i.d. geometrically distributed random variables. Although, as far as we know, this game hasn't been studied before, similar problems have.
title On a Roll Again: Analysis of a Dice Removal Game
topic Probability
62G30
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.12262