Probability Simulation?

Hey folks. Excuse the pun, but I don't exactly excel at math.

I need to build a sheet that simulates probability. For example, let's say it begins with a variable for "slot machine plays" that is either calculated elsewhere in the sheet or entered manually. Beside it is a column marked "big jackpot" with a certain percentage to "win" (let's say, 0.0014 probability). Rather than just divide and come up with a straight up number derived from the percentage, I'd like the "big jackpot" column to simulate the actual number of plays based on the original variable and come up with a random number of "wins" based on the win probability.

I'm sure this can be done, but it's beyond my Excel-fu abilities.

Any help?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by shg

In A1 & copy down,

=if(rand() <= 0.0014, "Win", "Lose")

Thanks for the quick reply!

I had considered a solution like that, but unfortunately my sheet is a little too complicated to utilize that method. I'd go into details of the specifics, but when I explain what I do for a living, folks tend to look at me like I've grown a third eye

What I need to do, if possible, is have it all happen in a single cell. For example:

A1 contains the number of "tries"
B1 takes the number of tries and runs the probability (either based internally to the formula or pulled from a different cell) and returns the number of "wins" that occurred in that number of tries.

I've done things like this in C based programming languages using for loops and incrementing a variable, but I'm not sure Excel can do things that complex in a formula?

Thanks again for your help!

Doing some more digging through the Internet, it appears as though Google Sheets use Javascript as their scripting language, which I know quite a bit better than VBA. Might try this in Google Sheets.

Thanks to everyone for your help!