Note on a Coin Tossing Problem Posed by Daniel Litt
Combinatorics
2025-12-09 v3
Abstract
We present an analysis of a coin-tossing problem posed by Daniel Litt which has generated some popular interest. We demonstrate a recursive identity which leads to relatively simple formulas for the excess number of wins for one player over the other together with its increments as the number of coin tosses increases. Formulas and recursive algorithms are provided to calculate the number of sequences with any given point-score difference.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2409.13087,
title = {Note on a Coin Tossing Problem Posed by Daniel Litt},
author = {Bruce Levin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.13087},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
This update corrects three harmless typos on lines 3 and 4 of the table on page 3. The corrections have no material effect on the results