In a room containing 1024 people, what are the odds that at least one person in the room could correctly call 10 coin tosses in a row? Here are some random trails for that scenario. After each flip all the winners go on to the next round.

For this purpose, a number is selected at random between 0 and 1023. That number is converted to binary, each binary digit representing one of the ten coin flips, zero being tails and one being heads. Thus, all the coin flips for any of the 1024 possible numbers are predetermined, though our 1024 individuals in the room will be flipping their coins without knowing the outcome. The process of flipping the coins proceeds left to right using the generated binary number. If the left-most digit is zero, then the first flip will have been determined to be tails; if one, the first flip will be heads. After each flip all the winners go on to the next round. The program takes the number of individuals left from the last previous round and performs a "flip" that many times, producing a one or zero at random for each. If the binary digit being tested in our 10-digit binary number is one then all the individuals who had been assigned a one will win in that round. There may or may not be individuals left standing after the tenth coin flip.

Trial for 540 540 = 1000011100 Flip 1—heads: 511 of 1024 Flip 2—tails: 250 of 511 Flip 3—tails: 124 of 250 Flip 4—tails: 61 of 124 Flip 5—tails: 34 of 61 Flip 6—heads: 20 of 34 Flip 7—heads: 8 of 20 Flip 8—heads: 4 of 8 Flip 9—tails: 3 of 4 Flip 10—tails: 2 of 3