# How to calculate probabilities for the next colour to be out in Wheel of Fortune Casino Game.

Recently i've been very interested in how to parse data from html into my c program. I'm now considering to calculating the probabilities for the next colour to be out in the Wheel of Fortune.

But my math is scarce, and i want the best algorithm possible for my program.

I'm looking for some really nice suggestions and opinions, and overall some help for making this software awesome.

Consider the Wheel has 54 slots, with 26 black slots, 17 Red slots, 10 Blue slots, and 1 Gold.

Consider also that since we're registering for a given time the colours out with a software, we know how many n times a colour was out.

What's the mathematical approach to calculate the best probabilities for the next colour to be out? And how much we should register the colours before having an accurrate prediction?

• Could you explain something about the Wheel of Fortune game? In particular, it would be nice to know what it means for a colour to be out. – WW1 Feb 3 at 20:21
• The game consists of a wheel that is turned, the wheel is made up of many colors, and each color corresponds to a multiplier of winning. The wheel is turned by hand or by an algorithm, in the case of digital versions. – St3ve R0nix Feb 3 at 21:50

## 1 Answer

I assume an ideal Wheel of Fortune where on the first spin of the wheel the probability of black is $$26 / 54$$, the probability of red is $$17 / 54$$, the probability is $$10 / 54$$ and the probability of gold is $$1 / 54$$.

What you ask for does not really exist, at least not in the way you mean it. The problem is that even if you record that the wheel was on black for the last 50 rounds, the probabilities for each color remain the same for the next round. So in the next round there is still a probability of $$26 / 54$$ for black. This is called memorylessness. Your program therefore should print the same probabilities each round.