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Empirical Probability

Categories: Metrics, Accounting

We badly want this to be something a wizard does in his alchemy lab, like the probability of transmuting the Wisconsin Cheesy Chicken in the cafeteria into Gummi Bears.

Sadly, an empirical probability is just the actual number of times an event happened in an experiment divided by the total number of times the experiment was run.

Some people call it a relative frequency or experimental probability, but they lack a fertile imagination. Maybe we swiped right on 230 cuties on Tinder. We matched with 7. The empirical probability, then, that we matched was 7 out of 230, or 0.03, or about 3%.

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)