est for ticket 1548. The exact values are: mean: mu = a / (a + 1) variance: sigma**2 = a / ((a + 2) * (a + 1) ** 2) skewness: One formula (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skewness) is gamma_1 = (E[X**3] - 3*mu*E[X**2] + 2*mu**3) / sigma**3 A short calculation shows that E[X**k] is a / (a + k), so gamma_1 can be implemented as n = a/(a+3) - 3*(a/(a+1))*a/(a+2) + 2*(a/(a+1))**3 d = sqrt(a/((a+2)*(a+1)**2)) ** 3 gamma_1 = n/d Either by simplifying, or by a direct calculation of mu_3 / sigma**3, one gets the more concise formula: gamma_1 = -2.0 * ((a - 1) / (a + 3)) * sqrt((a + 2) / a) kurtosis: (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurtosis) The excess kurtosis is gamma_2 = mu_4 / sigma**4 - 3 A bit of calculus and algebra (sympy helps) shows that mu_4 = 3*a*(3*a**2 - a + 2) / ((a+1)**4 * (a+2) * (a+3) * (a+4)) so gamma_2 = 3*(3*a**2 - a + 2) * (a+2) / (a*(a+3)*(a+4)) - 3 which can be rearranged to gamma_2 = 6 * (a**3 - a**2 - 6*a + 2) / (a*(a+3)*(a+4)) )