In probability theory and statistics, the negative binomial distribution is a discrete probability distribution of the number of successes in a sequence of independent and identically distributed Bernoulli trials before a specified (non-random) number of failures (denoted r) occurs. For example, if we define a "1" as failure, all non-"1"s as successes, and we throw a die repeatedly until the third time “1” appears (r = three failures), then the probability distribution of the number of non-“1”s that had appeared will be a negative binomial.
The Pascal distribution (after Blaise Pascal) and Polya distribution (for George Pólya) are special cases of the negative binomial. There is a convention among engineers, climatologists, and others to reserve “negative binomial” in a strict sense or “Pascal” for the case of an integer-valued stopping-time parameter r, and use “Polya” for the real-valued case.
For occurrences of “contagious” discrete events, like tornado outbreaks, the Polya distributions can be used to give more accurate models than the Poisson distribution by allowing the mean and variance to be different, unlike the Poisson. “Contagious” events have positively correlated occurrences causing a larger variance than if the occurrences were independent, due to a positive covariance term