Rocco Moretti wrote: > rbt wrote: > >> The TV show on NBC in the USA running this week during primetime (Deal >> or No Deal). I figure there are roughly 10, maybe 15 contestants. They >> pick a briefcase that has between 1 penny and 1 million bucks and then >> play this silly game where NBC tries to buy the briefcase from them >> while amounts of money are taken away from the list of possibilities. >> The contestant's hope is that they've picked a briefcase with a lot of >> money and that when an amount is removed from the list that it is >> small amount of money not a large amount (I categorize a large amount >> to be more than 100,000) > > > Well, if the contestants' choices are truly random, and they stick with > their first choice all the way to the end, each contestant wins, on > average, $131 477.54 (sum(amounts)/len(amounts)). > > Assuming that the buyout offer is always less than (or equal to) the > average of the still-available amounts, NBC will (on average) never have > to pay out more than ~$132k per contestant. Likely they'll pay out less, > because most people will get nervous before the very end, and will take > the low ball offer NBC is fronting. > > What I would really like to know, is how they calculate the offer. > Obviously, they set the upper limit at the average of the still standing > offers, but I wonder if and how they take subsequent rounds into > consideration.
I've seen them offer more than the average towards the end of the game (UK version). Duncan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
