Snakes and Ladders

Snakes and Ladders board, dated 1966, from the Auckland Museum (credit)

Snakes and Ladders is an ancient board game originating in India. It is totally random, and hence not very interesting. If players start on square #1, then after one turn, they have equal probabilities of being on squares #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, and #7. This image shows the probability distribution:

After two turns, the probability distribution is as follows (the most likely total of two dice rolls is 7, taking a player to square #8 and up a ladder to #26:

After 8 turns, players would be scattered all over the board. There is a 1% chance that any given player has won:

After 19 turns, there is a 24.7% chance that any given player has won:

This probability grows to 50.4% after 35 turns. But no matter how long you play, it remains possible (though increasingly unlikely) that nobody has won yet. Yet another reason why children tend to rapidly tire of the game.

For an alternative view of the probability analysis, see this animation:


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