Joseph Portelli

3/27/18

An Experiment to “Die” For:

A Study on The Probability of Rolling Dice

Abstract:

Rolling dice is important to a number of games of chance. The calculated probability of

rolling a value on a pair of dice is accurate at modelling the likelihood of a certain role. It is also

accurate at predicting the likelihood of a repetition when rolling a single die. I came to this

conclusion after rolling dice 100 times and getting a percentage of each roll that was similar to

the percentage from the probability.

Introduction:

Rolling dice is as important to a kid playing Monopoly as it is to a gambler addicted to

Craps. The majority of us have encountered dice once in our lives. Its use can be dated as far

back as the Roman empire with Emperor Augustus having a notable fondness for them.

Mathematicians have been modelling them through the use of probability for years. It has been

taught to middle school kids with the “two-dice horse race,” an experiment that finds which dice

value will occur the most frequently (Foster and Martin 2016). I will be rolling a pair of dice 100

times to prove that rolling dice will follow the probability of the amount of possible

combinations for a certain value. For example, since there is only one possible combination for

rolling a two with a pair of dice and since there are 36 possible combinations, there is a 1/36

chance of rolling a two.

Methods and Materials:

For the experiment, I used a new pair of dice, my flat floor, and recorded my data on a

laptop. I marked each die with a small pencil mark to differentiate them when recording the

value of the roll. Before each roll, I shook the dice with both hands for five seconds. I released

each roll about 6 inches from the floor. After the roll, I recorded the data on a table noting of the

value of each die and total value of the roll (Figure 5).

Results:

The percentage of each dice combination was relatively close to the expected percentage.

The expected percentage was calculated using the number of dice combinations for a value out

of the total possible dice combinations. As the amount of combinations for the dice increased the

number of rolls increased.

Total Dice # Combinations Actual Expected

# of Rolls
Value for Value Percentage (%) Percentage (%)

2 1 3 3 2.78

3 2 6 6 5.56

4 3 8 8 8.33

5 4 12 12 11.11

6 5 9 9 13.89

7 6 19 19 16.67

8 5 14 14 13.89

9 4 12 12 11.11
 10 3 12 12 8.33

11 2 4 4 5.56

12 1 1 1 2.78

Figure 1 The expected and actual percentage of each possible roll.

The comparison is presented visually in Figure 2.

Total Dice Value vs Percentages

20

15
Percentage

10

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Dice Value

Actual Percentage (%) Expected Percentage (%)

Figure 2: The actual and expected percentage of roll graphed.

The number of repeated rolls was also accounted for in this third table. This was not intended to

be part of the experiment but I was interested how close my rolls matched the 16.67 percent

likelihood of a repetition. This 16.67 percent comes from the 1/6 chance of repeating a value on

a die.

Die # # of repeated rolls out of 100

1 13

2 17

Figure 3: The number of repeated rolls for each die.

Appendix:

Roll Die 1 Die 2 Dice Combination

1 2 4 6

2 1 1 2

3 2 2 4

4 6 4 10

5 6 4 10

6 2 1 3

7 1 6 7

8 1 2 3

9 1 6 7

10 2 4 6

11 4 3 7

12 3 2 5

13 6 5 11

14 5 6 11

15 6 3 9

16 3 4 7

17 5 6 11

18 4 6 10

19 6 4 10

20 3 5 8
21 5 6 11

22 1 2 3

23 2 6 8

24 6 4 10

25 4 4 8

26 4 5 9

27 6 3 9

28 4 2 6

29 2 2 4

30 2 2 4

31 4 3 7

32 2 6 8

33 3 3 6

34 5 2 7

35 4 3 7

36 1 5 6

37 1 3 4

38 5 3 8

39 5 2 7

40 5 4 9

41 6 2 8

42 5 5 10

43 2 1 3
44 4 6 10

45 6 1 7

46 4 1 5

47 4 3 7

48 2 1 3

49 3 4 7

50 2 3 5

51 1 1 2

52 4 6 10

53 2 6 8

54 2 6 8

55 3 2 5

56 2 1 3

57 6 3 9

58 3 5 8

59 6 2 8

60 3 2 5

61 5 5 10

62 4 1 5

63 6 4 10

64 3 6 9

65 6 4 10

66 3 6 9
67 2 4 6

68 4 5 9

69 6 1 7

70 1 5 6

71 2 2 4

72 3 2 5

73 2 3 5

74 1 1 2

75 2 3 5

76 3 3 6

77 5 2 7

78 5 4 9

79 6 1 7

80 2 3 5

81 1 4 5

82 3 4 7

83 6 1 7

84 3 6 9

85 4 6 10

86 1 6 7

87 3 6 9

88 2 2 4

89 6 6 12
 90 2 4 6

91 2 6 8

92 3 2 5

93 3 5 8

94 5 4 9

95 2 5 7

96 2 2 4

97 6 1 7

98 3 1 4

99 2 6 8

100 5 3 8

Figure 5 The value of each die, and the total value after each role.

Works Cited

Baker, Jonathan. Rolling the Dice. (2013). Mathematics Teacher, 106(7), 551-556.

Foster, C., & Martin, D. (2016). Two-dice horse race. 38(3), 98.

Analysis:

This experiment confirmed my hypothesis that after rolling dice 100 times the percentage of each

roll value would come close to the expected percentage. Rolling the dice 100 times is what

allowed for the percentages to be similar to the expected result. My constant setting and method

of shaking the dice helped the results as well. My research agrees with the findings of David

Martin and Colin Foster in their “Two Dice Horse Race” where they found the value of 7 to be
the most likely to occur. It also heavily follows the rules of permutations discussed by Jonathan

D. Baker in “Rolling the Dice.” The repetition of a value of one of the die was something I took

note of to further assess how closely the dice followed proportions. I was not disappointed in my

finding since it was very near to 16.67 percent value I expected (Fig. 3).

Conclusion:

Further study can definitely be done on repetition of rolling a single die. There were times that a

die repeated a value three times and that could have been further explored if I increased the

number of rolls I did to 1,000 or even 1,000,000. This is where programming would be very

useful since Baker, Foster and Martin used programs to roll dice such a number of times. With

sufficient data, the likelihood of repeating a value on die as many number of times could be

compared to the value given following the laws of permutation in mathematics which is are the

rules for calculating probability.