Use Excel Spreadsheet to Simulate Tossing a Die

Equal probabilities

To simulate a roll of a die use the following spreadsheet syntax =INT(6* RAND ()+1).

This takes a random number between 0 and 1 (RAND()).

It then is multiplied by 6 to give a number between 0 and 5.99 to two decimal places (6* RAND ()).

Add one to give a number between 1 and 6.99 to two d.p (6* RAND ()+1).

Finally take the integer part of this number to give a random number between 1 and 6.

Fill down to give the desired number of trials.

(To generate many simulations of rolling a die 60 press CTRL = . )

Unequal probabilities

To simulate non-equally likely outcomes on a spreadsheet it is necessary to assign particular values to represent specific outcomes.

For example, if there are three outcomes and Outcome 1 has a probability of ½, and the other two each have a probability of ¼ it would be possible to use the RAND() feature and if 1-4 is generated then this is outcome 1, 5-6 is outcome 2 and 7-8 represents outcome 3.