Throwing a Die with a Computer Algebra System – in Theory and Practice

Most management science and economics students attending an advanced statistics course appreciate a quick repetition of the concept of random variables. We describe the application of the computer algebra system Derive to the familiar “throwing a die” example which turns out to be a substantial time saver, e.g. since tedious manual calculations can be avoided. Our approach also allows straightforward application to the investigation of other gambling examples. Last but not least, using a computer algebra system also makes looking at the empirical side of gambling more comfortable by providing built-in functions for pseudo random number generation as well as for the computation of statistical parameters.