Math

Coin Toss Probability Formula with Problem Solution & Solved Example

Table of Contents

The coin toss is nothing but experimenting with tossing a coin. When the probability of an event is zero then the even is said to be impossible. In the case of a coin, there are maximum two possible outcomes – head or tail. At any particular time period, both outcomes cannot be achieved together so probability always lies between 0 and 1.

Take an example of cricket match where before starting a match, a decision is to be made which team would bowl or bat first. This is decided on the basis of coin tossing only. The team who wins the toss will make the decision of bowling and batting first. This is one of the most common examples of coin tossing.

Here, you can see clearly that the possibility of getting head and tail is almost equal that is 50 – 50 percent. When you will toss multiple coins together then the outcome may differ in this case. If the event is not likely to occur then the probability would be zero. And one contains the certainty of occurrence.

Coin Toss Probability Formula

Here are possible assumptions associated with coin tossing experiment –

Number of possible outcomes = 2

Number of outcomes to get head = 1

Probability of getting a head = ½

Hence,

\[\ Probability\;of\;getting\;a\;head = \frac{No\;of\;outcomes\;to get\;head}{No\;of\;possible\;outcomes}\]

We can generalise the coin toss probability formula:

\[\ Probability\;of\;certain\;event=\frac{Number\;of\;favourable\;outcomes}{Total\;number\;of\;possible\;outcomes}\]

When we flip the coin maximum number of times, more approximation we get. For example, if we are getting 75 heads out of 100 times then the outcome would be 0.75 here.