A dice game, a multinomial walk, and the inverted Dirichlet distribution

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Leobacher, Gunther, Steinicke, Alexander
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Leobacher, Gunther
Steinicke, Alexander
author_facet Leobacher, Gunther
Steinicke, Alexander
contents We consider a simple dice game, which leads to an intriguing study of multinomial walks, with surprising and seemingly paradoxical properties. The winning and losing probabilities of a general version of the game are investigated via conjugacy relations between Gamma and Poisson distributions, as well as between negative multinomial and inverted Dirichlet distributions. We show a monotonicity property of the regularized beta function, which implies a monotonicity property of the winning probability. Furthermore, the asymptotic behavior of the game for one or several parameters of the game tending to infinity is analyzed, as well as the probability of being last in the game.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_21424
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A dice game, a multinomial walk, and the inverted Dirichlet distribution
Leobacher, Gunther
Steinicke, Alexander
Probability
33B20, 91A60, 60E05, 60G50
We consider a simple dice game, which leads to an intriguing study of multinomial walks, with surprising and seemingly paradoxical properties. The winning and losing probabilities of a general version of the game are investigated via conjugacy relations between Gamma and Poisson distributions, as well as between negative multinomial and inverted Dirichlet distributions. We show a monotonicity property of the regularized beta function, which implies a monotonicity property of the winning probability. Furthermore, the asymptotic behavior of the game for one or several parameters of the game tending to infinity is analyzed, as well as the probability of being last in the game.
title A dice game, a multinomial walk, and the inverted Dirichlet distribution
topic Probability
33B20, 91A60, 60E05, 60G50
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.21424