Benford's Law Part 2 - The 80/20 Rule or Pareto Principle

This page explores Benford's law and the Pareto Principle (or 80/20 rule). Benford's law may also have a wider meaning if the digits it evaluates are considered ranks or places. The digit's probability of occurring could be considered the relative share of total winnings for each place (1st through 9th). In other words, 1st place would win 30.1%, 2nd place 17.6%, 3rd 12.5%,... 9th place 4.6% of the available rewards. The normalized Benford curve could be used as a model for ranked data such as the wealth of individuals in a country. To determine if the Benford model gives results similar to those of the Pareto principle we use the normalized Benford equation in a computer program.