[Math] Probability of rolling at least one 6 while rerolling 1’s

combinatoricsdicediscrete mathematicsprobability

Scenario: You roll a number of 6-sided dice

Success: Roll at least one 6

Conditions: You can re-roll any 1's you get on the first roll

What are the odds of success for n dice?

Example: 7 dice

Roll:            (1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 5)

Re-roll:      (1, 2, 3)

Final dice: (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5)

Result:        Failure

My take on this was: For any number of rolled 1's, "replace" those rolls with rolling n+x dice (where x is the number of 1's rolled) and thus reducing the problem to simple combinatorics, but I didn't get very far.

I suppose there is a simple "trick", so I'm looking for other angles into this problem.

However, if it turns out not to be so simple, please try to be as verbose and layman-friendly as you can.

Best Answer

The best strategy is to reroll any rolled 1, of course. So using that strategy, what is the chance that you do not end up at a 6 with a single dice? The probability for an instant 6 is $1/6$, and for a 1 with a rerolled 6 is $(1/6)^2 = 1/36$. So in total for a single dice, the chance not to get a 6 is $$1 - (1/6 + 1/36) = 29/36.$$

So for $n$ dice, the probability of getting at least one 6 is $$ p = 1 - \left(\frac{29}{36}\right)^{\!n}. $$

For small $n$, we get these approximated probabilities: $$ \begin{array}{cc} n & p \\ \hline 1 & 19.44\% \\ 2 & 35.10\% \\ 3 & 47.73\% \\ 4 & 57.89\% \\ 5 & 66.08\% \\ 6 & 72.67\% \\ 7 & 77.99\% \\ 8 & 82.27\% \\ 9 & 85.72\% \\ 10 & 88.49\% \end{array} $$

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