Posted by Johnnymac 3:57 PM
It is a fairly simple game and I cannot imagine how they could use it to fill an entire half-hour game show, but for a degenerate gambler like I am (and like many of you), this is like pure cocaine without the annoying money part. I can sit here and play this all day long for free: Deal or No Deal.

6 Comment(s):

Posted by  Junelli, at 2:17 PM, March 01, 2006  

By far the best game show around. I have watched every episode, and use my knowledge of "odds" to justify turning down every deal!!

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 6:13 PM, March 01, 2006  

Even when the deal is better than the EV of your briefcase?

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 6:14 PM, March 01, 2006  

To clarify, I haven't pulled out a calculator so maybe I'm wrong, but at some point the right decision is to take the deal, no?

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Posted by  Junelli, at 7:46 PM, March 01, 2006  

I've been trying to figure out the math of it, but I'm pretty sure it comes down to your personal comfort zone. The deal they offer is never as good as the true odds, because otherwise the bank wouldn't make the offer.

It's no different than the odds the pot is offering you against your chance of hitting your hand.

E.G. If you have a 1 in 3 chance of having the $1mm case, I would guess that your chances are worth $333k. The offers tend to be in the range of $220k.

I don't know though. Probably better left to beancounters like Dr. Fro.

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 8:29 PM, March 01, 2006  

Hmmm.... Like I said, I didn't take a calculator to it, but it seemed to me from my rough math this afternoon that sometimes the deal was better than the EV of the remaining suitcases (including the one you picked). In other words, if there were 11+1 suitcases left and the sum of the remainder was $120,000, sometimes the deal would be ~$11,000 and sometimes it would be ~$9,000 (but always weird non-even numbers so it can be slightly more confusing).

Seems to me that the proper strategy would be to take the deal whenever the was greater than the hypothetical $10,000 but maybe I am looking at it wrong.

Dammit, Fro, where are you?

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 8:35 PM, March 01, 2006  

I guess though, that the appeal of the game (especially on TV) would be the tight decisions where one would be tempted to show off the size of his nuts. Guess right and eliminate a low number and that EV could go WAY up.

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