NCAA   <- Talks   <-  Sean Forman   <-  You Are Here

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Monte Carlo Simulation

• Imagine managing a grocery store
  • Customers arrive at random times and with random needs.

  • How many checkout aisles do you need?

  • How many people will be waiting in line?

  • How big does the parking lot need to be?

  • You don't want to over-design as that will cost money.

• Monte Carlo simulation can help answer these question.

• Take small random events (customer arrivals and needs) and simulate these events over long periods of time within the context of the larger system (the entire grocery store).

• Study the results to see what it says about long-term system behaviors.

• In our basketball simulation, the game outcomes are the small events and the overall bracket is the larger system.

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