212k views
0 votes
Five cards are dealt from a standard deck. What is the probability that at least four of them are hearts?

1 Answer

3 votes

Explanation:

To calculate the probability of getting at least four hearts when dealing five cards from a standard deck, we can use the concept of combinations and probability.

There are a total of 52 cards in a standard deck, and 13 of them are hearts (assuming no jokers). So the probability of drawing a heart on the first card is 13/52, or 1/4.

Now, there are two possible scenarios that would result in at least four hearts:

Four hearts and one non-heart: This can happen in C(13,4) * C(39,1) ways, where C(n, k) is the number of combinations of n items taken k at a time. The first part C(13,4) represents choosing 4 hearts out of 13, and the second part C(39,1) represents choosing 1 non-heart out of the remaining 39 cards. The total number of ways to choose 5 cards from 52 is C(52,5).

Five hearts: This can happen in C(13,5) ways, where C(13,5) represents choosing all 5 hearts out of 13.

So, the total number of favorable outcomes is C(13,4) * C(39,1) + C(13,5), and the total number of possible outcomes is C(52,5). Therefore, the probability of getting at least four hearts is:

P(at least 4 hearts) = (C(13,4) * C(39,1) + C(13,5)) / C(52,5)

Plugging in the values and simplifying, we get:

P(at least 4 hearts) = (C(13,4) * C(39,1) + C(13,5)) / C(52,5)

= (715 * 39 + 1287) / 2,598,960

= 27,885 / 2,598,960

≈ 0.0107566

So, the probability of getting at least four hearts when dealing five cards from a standard deck is approximately 0.0107566 or about 1.08%.

User Yessie
by
8.4k points