Using the Dice-Based Golf Game GOLO to Illustrate Discrete Probability Distributions and Sampling Distributions on Proportions

• Activity Number: 398
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Paul L. Stephenson*+ and Mary Richardson and John Gabrosek and Diann Reischman
• Companies: Grand Valley State University and Grand Valley State University and Grand Valley State University and Grand Valley State University
• Keywords: Active learning ; Binomial distribution ; Geometric distribution ; Hypergeometric distribution ; Distribution of the first order statistic ; Sampling distribution of a proportion

Abstract

GOLO is a simple and addicting dice game that replicates golf using nine twelve-sided dice. The basic rules of GOLO are to roll all nine dice and remove your lowest score(s). You may remove as many dice as you wish, but you must remove at least one die each roll. Place the remaining dice in the cup and roll again. Continue to roll until all nine dice are removed and add up the score for the nine dice (which represents the golfer's nine hole score).

In this talk the authors will briefly introduce the game of GOLO. Then the authors will demonstrate how this game can be used to illustrate the binomial, geometric, and hypergeometric distributions. We will then demonstrate how GOLO can illustrate the sampling distribution of the proportion. We will also demonstrate how GOLO can be used to illustrate the Law of Large Numbers and the distribution of the first order statistic.