I’ve been watching this the past few weeks. As game shows go, it’s not the best, but far from the worst. The contestants are entertaining, the host does a credible job, and as an occasional Bingo player I find enjoyment in it.
But last night, something happened that had Mrs. Know and I scratching our heads and asking, “WTF just happened here?” If you’re a Bingo player, you’ll understand. Here goes:
In Game 2, the first 5 numbers drawn were 4 I’s and a G. After the fourth I was drawn, 8 people were “one away” from having Bingo. Not very probable in a group of 200, but possible nonetheless. The next number drawn was G-57. On that number, 10 more people stood up as “one away”. Without going into a tedious discussion of the rules and probabilities of the game, suffice it to say that there is no possible way for that to happen.
I figure one of two things: someone in editing really screwed up, or there are serious questions regarding the game’s integrity.
I noticed that as well. I agree that there is no way to pull the balls like that and go from 8 to 18 people. The only possible bingo is along the I column.
One other possibility is that the other people who stood up after that second G was drawn actually had all four of those I’s as well and just didn’t notice before. I don’t see how, and to have basically 10% of all distributed cards out of 200 to have those same four numbers (out of 15 possible) seems low-probability, but I’d be happy to be corrected on the math.
Number of ways to have five of the 15 possible I numbers = 3003 ( = [sub]15[/sub]C[sub]5[/sub]).
Number of ways to have those 4 particular numbers that were called (and one of the others) = 11.
Therefore, the probability that a particular card would have those four numbers in its I column = 11/3003 = 0.003663 (around 1/3 of one percent).