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Maths Expert Works Out The Price Of Filling Your World Cup Sticker Book

Maths Expert Works Out The Price Of Filling Your World Cup Sticker Book

The price of stickers went up from 50p to 80p a pack and all in all it's going to cost you a lot of money.

Ryan Sidle

Ryan Sidle

Is anyone collecting stickers for the World Cup this summer? I imagine if you are then you'll be pretty annoyed by the 30p increase in sticker packs but nowhere near as annoyed as you'll be to find out how much filling the book will cost.

There's something so wonderful delightful about collecting stickers for a sticker book despite the fact that 90% of the time you aren't even going to go through with collecting all of them.

As a kid I can remember my dad taking me and my brother down to the local newsagents on a Saturday where we were allowed two packs each. I was so selfless that the week my brother's stickers weren't in I decided not to get any Premier League ones so he wasn't left out, not all heroes wear capes.

Here's some other things to remember from football as a kid, the good old days:

Of course you had to go into school on Monday for any chance of getting close to completing your book, the old 'got, got, need' was an essential part of growing up.

Now though there is no playground to discuss such issues in and I don't use my own hard earned money to collect, not even for the World Cup, and based on how much it would cost to fill the book I'm glad.

According to leading mathematician Professor Paul Harper, via the Mirror, it would cost over £700 to complete. Based on probability Harper reckons it would take 4,832 stickers, 967 packets or £773.60 to get all the stickers!

Look at all those 2018 World Cup stickers. Image: PA Images
Look at all those 2018 World Cup stickers. Image: PA Images

Harper explains, "The first sticker you buy is absolutely guaranteed not to be a duplicate. The second sticker you get has a 681/682 (99.85%) chance of being a new sticker. The third sticker you get has a 680/682 (99.7%) chance of being a new sticker, and so on."

Of course all that is without swaps and there's an even better way to cut down the cost. If you find 10 of your pals to all collect together, all with a separate book but only buying packs together, then you'll cut down the price by 68%.

Got, got, need! Image: PA Images
Got, got, need! Image: PA Images

The expert from Cardiff University also revealed that just when you think you're close to completion you're actually a long, long, way off, adding, "What is interesting is that to collect just the last 19 stickers for the book, you would still be required to buy 483 packets of stickers, or half the total number of expected packets.

"Put another way, you are only half way through when you have just 19 stickers left to collect."

Good luck to everyone out there collecting!

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Football News, Russia 2018, World Cup