Menu
Sign up Sign in
Live Game

Efron's Dice

MYP / IB DP probability Β· 40–60 min

Warren Buffett once offered Bill Gates first pick of these four dice β€” and Gates refused. Students duel live on their own devices, predict their chances, and the class data builds the case for the strangest result in recreational probability.

Share

How it works

Launch a session and project the join code. Students join anonymously on their phones, get paired, and play: one player picks a die first, the other picks second β€” knowingly. Before rolling, each player predicts how many rounds they'll win. Every roll lands in the class dataset, and the dashboard's headline number β€” how often the second picker wins β€” does the teaching for you.

The mathematics

Green β†’ Yellow β†’ Purple β†’ Red β†’ Green: each die beats the next with probability 2/3, so second pick always wins. Students compare their prediction with their data, build two-way tables from their own duels, read sample-space grids, and commit to a conjecture before the class discussion.

Downloads

LaTeX source

Editable .tex for adapting this resource.