[Math] Four fair six-sided dice are rolled. What is the probability that at least three of the four dice show the same

probability

We can choose any value for the first one, so… $1 \times \frac{1}{6} \times \frac{1}{6} + (\frac{1}{6})^3$ will be equal to the answer. But this doesn't seem right to me.

Best Answer

You should break up the problem into pieces. First let's compute how many ways we can get exactly three of the dice to show the same number. First we choose which three dice we are forcing to have the same value (namely $4\choose 3$) and multiply this by the number of values the three dice can have (there are 6 possibilities here). Then multiply this by all possible values for the fourth dice (this is 5 since we can't have the last die have the same value as the first 3). This gives a total of $5\times 6\times$$4\choose 3 $$=120$ possibilities.

Now we add the above to the number of ways all four dice land on the same number - there are only 6 ways.

There are a total of $6^4 = 1296$ possible configurations of the four dice. The probability you want is $\frac{126}{1296} = \frac{7}{72}$ giving about a $9.7$% chance of this occurring.