Problem

The probability that you will win a game is 0.45. (a) If you play the game 80 times, what is the most likely
number of wins? (b) What are the mean and variance of a binomial distribution with p = 0.45 and N = 80?

Solution

Here X denote the number of wins out of N = 80 games.

The probability that you will win a game is p = 0.45.
The probability mass function of X is
 
80
P (X = x) = (0.45)x (1 0.45)80x , x = 0, 1, , 80.
x

(a) The most likely number of wins is the value of X at which the probability mass function P (X = x)
becomes maximum. The most likely value of X is called the mode.
For Binomial distribution B(N, p), if m = (N + 1) p is an integer then there are two mode at (m 1) and
m, but if m = (N + 1) p is not an integer then there is a single mode at bmc.
We have (N + 1) p = (80 + 1) 0.45 = 36.45, which is not an integer. Hence there is a single mode and it is
at bmc = b36.45c = 36. Thus the most likely number of wins is 36.
(b) Mean and Variance
Mean of Binomial distribution B(N, p) is N p and variance of Binomial distribution is N p (1 p).

mean = N p
= 80 0.45
= 36

Variance = N p (1 p)
= 80 0.45 (1 0.45)
= 19.8