Why normal approximation to binomial distribution uses np> 5 as a condition I was reading about normal approximation to binomial distribution and I dunno how it works for cases when you say for example p is equal to 0.3 where p is probability of success.
On most websites it is written that normal approximation to binomial distribution works well if average is greater than 5. I.e. np> 5
But I am unable to find where did this empirical formula came from?
If n is quite large and probability of success is equal to .5 then i agree that normal approximation to binomial distribution is going to be quite accurate. But what about other cases? How can one say np> 5 is the condition for doing normal approximation?

So I did some experiments. I think np>5 condition is not correct at all. It depends on Excess Kurtosis value for a given binomial distribution. If it is Mesokurtic then approximation will give accurate results.
Check following table

for n=11 and p=0.5 kurtosis will be around 0.18. That is platykurtic and so I don't think approximation will give accurate results, even though n*p=5.5 > 5. The table shows results which manifests what I am trying to say.
