Distributions – Calculating the Probability of Drawing No Red Balls in 20 Attempts Without Replacement

distributionshypergeometric-distributionprobability

I understand this to be a binomial distribution: There are 100 balls in a bucket. 10 are red, 90 are blue. I select a ball at random and then replace it in the bucket, and I do this 20 times. I then calculate the probability that none of the selected balls were red.

But what if I don't put the ball back in the bucket? The probability then changes with each trial. Can anyone point me in the right direction of how to calculate the probability in this case?

Best Answer

Let $B$ denotes blue balls, $R$ denotes red balls, then you may apply the formula for hypergeometric distribution:

$$P(B = 20, R = 0) = \frac{\binom{10}{0}\binom{90}{20}}{\binom{100}{20}} = \frac{\binom{90}{20}}{\binom{100}{20}}$$

The last term exactly matches the @Macro's answer, but hypergeometric formula is more general. The idea beyond the formula is simple: get the number of ways to draw $20$ $B$ of $90$, number of ways to draw $0$ $R$ from $10$ (there is only one possibility) and divide their product by the number or ways to draw any $20$ balls from $100$. Hope this was not your homework ;)

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