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Pastimes : The new NFL
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To: Bill who wrote (86648)9/17/2025 9:03:35 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell1 Recommendation

Recommended By
Bill

   of 90457
 
This one is easy to calculate. To figure out the possible number of choices, since we have only two per game (win or lose; same as a coin flip), it's 2 to the power of the number of games. So with 5 games, it's 2^5 (2x2x2x2x2) = 32.

That means if we wanted to predict what the first person chose as their teams, we'd have a 1/32 chance of being right. Similarly, they'd have a 1/32 chance in making any given set of picks. Each of the next 17 players would have the same 1/32 chance (assuming their picks were random, i.e. they didn't purposefully copy someone else's, of course). That means (1/32)^17. That means there are 32^-17 possible outcomes, which simplifies to 2^-85.

That number is astronomically small, sort of like the odds of Don actually winning this pool.

- Jeff
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