Win rates at first-passage times for biased simple random walks
Probability
2025-12-29 v2
Abstract
We study the win rate of a biased simple random walk on at the first-passage time , with . Using generating-function techniques and integral representations, we derive explicit formulas for the expectation and variance of along with monotonicity properties in the threshold and the bias . We also provide closed-form expressions and use them to design unbiased coin-flipping estimators of based on first-passage sampling; the resulting schemes illustrate how biasing the coin can dramatically improve both approximation accuracy and computational cost.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.21254,
title = {Win rates at first-passage times for biased simple random walks},
author = {F. Thomas Bruss and Davy Paindaveine},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.21254},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
12 pages, 2 figures