247.Ruined on Schedule
★★★random walksCh. 2 — Axiomatic and Conditional Probability444+ Problems in Probability
A gambler starts with , where is an integer. Each round, the gambler wins or loses with respective probabilities and . Once the gambler has left, he leaves the table. The probability that the gambler is ruined after exactly rounds ( an integer) can be written as a function . Compute to the nearest ten-thousandth.
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This is a first-passage time. The hitting time theorem (or cycle lemma) says for a random walk.
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