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Is there a difference between drawing a random card, and mathematically generating a random card? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 month ago by swordgeek@lemmy.ca to c/askscience@lemmy.world

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

OK, I had a hard time coming up with a single sentence title, so please bear with me.

Let's assume I have a computer with a perfect random number generator. I want to draw from a (electronic) deck of cards that have been shuffled. I can see two distinct algorithms to accomplish this:

Fill a list with the 52 cards in random order, and then pull cards from the list in sequence. That is, defining the (random) sequence of cards before getting them. This is analogous to flipping over cards from a the top of a well-shuffled deck.
Generate a random card from the set that hasn't been selected yet. In other words, you don't keep track of what card is going to come up next, you do a random select each time.

Programattically I can see advantages to both systems, but I'm wondering if there's any mathematical or statistical difference between them.

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[–] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

if you’re playing a card game that requires deck manipulation...

Ah! This is something that I hadn't directly considered. Interesting point, and it could be a serious concern for some games.

Thanks!