under "Value", ?dbinom says If ?size? is not an integer, ?NaN? is returned. That should be something like If ?size? is not an integer, ?NaN? is returned (or 'NA' for rbinom). ... at least that's what happens for me under svn rev 70138, Ubuntu 14 > rbinom(1,size=0.5,prob=0.5) [1] NA Warning message: In rbinom(1, size = 0.5, prob = 0.5) : NAs produced > dbinom(1,size=0.5,prob=0.5) [1] NaN Warning message: In dbinom(1, size = 0.5, prob = 0.5) : NaNs produced