Fefferoo

It’s Chanukah and we play dreidel, a game of luck. There are four sides to a dreidel. Each side has a Hebrew letter. You spin, and if you land on Gimel, you take all the money. If you land on Shin, you add money to the pot. If you land on Hay, you take half of the money in the pot, and on Nun, nothing happens. To start, all the players put a penny in the pot, and each player takes a turn spinning. We have six dreidels, and you can pick your favorite to spin.

I made a video to figure out the probability of it landing on Gimel X times in a row. It landed on Gimel seven times and then on Hay (I was really lucky). I wondered what the probability of landing on one Gimel would be. I made a probability chart for landing on one Gimel. The probability of landing on one Gimel is 1/4; but then what is the probability of landing on 7 Gimels in a row? I figured that since for one Gimel the probability was 1/4, the probibility for two Gimels would be 1/4 times 1/4, and for 7 Gimels it woud be 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 or (1/4)7. That equals about 0.00006. I think there is something up with this dreidel! Or I’m just really good at spinning dreidels.