Calculating Expected Value (EV)

what is expected value (ev)? (simple explanation) expected value (ev) is a way to figure out what you can expect to get on average when you open a loot box, based on the chances of getting different rewards think of it like this a loot box has different prizes inside some prizes are common and not worth a lot some prizes are rare and worth a lot each prize has a drop rate (how often you get it) since you don’t know exactly what you’ll get when you open one, ev helps you figure out the average value of a loot box if you opened thousands of them how to calculate ev (step by step) look at the possible rewards and their drop rates example a common item (60% chance) is worth $2 a rare item (25% chance) is worth $5 an epic item (10% chance) is worth $15 a legendary item (5% chance) is worth $50 multiply each item’s value by its drop rate common 60% × $2 = $1 20 rare 25% × $5 = $1 25 epic 10% × $15 = $1 50 legendary 5% × $50 = $2 50 add everything up to get the total ev ev =1 20+1 25+1 50+2 50= $6 45 what does this mean? if you open just one loot box, you could get lucky (a legendary) or unlucky (a common) but if you open thousands of them, the average value per box will be around $6 45 this does not mean every box is worth $6 45 just that, over time, statistically it evens out