Submitted by tensai on
Deal or No Deal is a fun show to watch for really only one reason, at least to me. It shows me why so many people waste so much money at casinos: because they never paid any attention in math class.
I'll skip the overview and just point you to the writeup on Wikipedia if you're not familiar.
The heart of my rant is this, when the contestant gets down to a few cases left they start saying things like "33% chance that his case contains $1,000,000". But when you get down to the math of it, that just isn't so. I know that because I actually learned something in my statistics class in college. I took it twice so I should hope so!
Here's the problem, when the contestant makes his initial pick from the unmarked cases, he has a 1/30 chance that it contains $1,000,000. That should be pretty obvious, right? What people don't understand is that those odds don't change during the course of the game. When there are just three cases left, the odds that the lucky contestant's case has $1,000,000 is still 1 in 30!
I find myself hoping that the contestant opens the big money and has to settle for $500. So in that way, I do have fun watching the show. Probably not the sort of thing the person playing the game would hope for, but what do I care? But do yourself a favor and read about the Monty Hall problem until you understand how it works. You might be surprised how often it will come in handy.
And if you ever get on Deal or No Deal and want to go for broke, that's fine. It might be fun for you. Just don't expect probability to be on your side. But when you win, do remember who tried to help you. :)
2 Comments
Monty Hall
Submitted by Will (not verified) on
I only watch Deal or No Deal when I'm at the gym, which is very rare, but don't they always offer the same choices to the player? The player makes all the selections down till they have 2 cases, then they pick which of the two they want, right? So, really the Monty Hall problem doesn't represent this case because the player could reveal the winning case at any point right? That's why, really they're still just going with a 1 in 30 chance right? Is that what you're saying?
I don't really get this Monty Hall thing, I guess that's what I get for doing my Stats class via independent study in the two weeks just before it was due.
And what's with the hard math questions to let me post? I had to grab a calculator, 2 + 4? Who can do that in their head?
Monty Hall
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on
To take the Monty Hall problem even further: When the contestant opens the first case and discovers it to be, say, $100, the odds are *better* that the $1,000,000 is *not* in his case (1/29 > 1/30). If I played the game, I would *know* that I had not picked the $1,000,000 from the start, and then make choices based on what's left on the stage, not what I think might be in my case.
Of course, I'll never try to get on the game, so none of this really matters.