Let be the last vertex visited for the first time, and assume . Every vertex is eventually painted with probability one: from any position, consecutive clockwise steps visit the entire cycle, and the probability of such a block is . Thus the probability that coverage has not occurred after successive blocks is at most , which tends to zero.
Fix and cut the cycle at . Represent it as the path with positions , where the two endpoints both represent and the original starting vertex is at position . Up to the first visit to , the walk is a simple symmetric random walk on this path, killed at either endpoint. The event is precisely that it visits both and before being killed: travelling between these two positions visits all intermediate vertices, while visiting all non- vertices necessarily includes these two.
For , first wait until the walk reaches one of . This happens almost surely before it can reach an absorbing endpoint. If it reaches first, it must next reach before zero. The gambler's ruin probability is : the hitting probability on satisfies
so its successive differences are constant and . Starting at gives the stated probability. If the first endpoint reached is , reflection of the path gives the same probability of reaching before . The Strong Markov property at the first such hit therefore gives , independently of which endpoint was hit first and of the start position.
Consequently the last visited vertex of a simple random walk on a cycle has distribution
For the same formula follows directly since the only other post must be last. For , painting the initial post already completes the task, so there is no subsequent last unpainted post.