Question

As captain of his football team, Jamal gets to call heads or tails for the toss of a fair coin at the beginning of each game. At the last five games, the coin has landed with heads up. What is the probability that the coin will land with tails up at the next game? Explain your answer

Answer 1

Answer: the probability is 0.5

Explanation:

A fair coin has the same probability for each result, so the probability of landing in tails is the same that landing in heads (0.5 for each of them)

Now, each flip of the coin is an independent event.

This means that the previous flips do not affect the next flip, so the fact that the previous 5 flips landed in heads has no impact in the probability of future flips.

Then the probability that in the next flip, the coin will land in tails up is 0.5