[ExI] alternative gambling game, was psi yet again.

[Gregory Jones]

--- On Tue, 6/29/10, John Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:
 
>...Many states have a game where you pay a dollar and pick a number from 000 to 999, if you guess correctly you get $500...
 
Here's a game for you.  In the above, most people, even halfwits, can see that you are paying a buck for a 1 in a 1000 shot at 500 bucks.  Terrible deal, but what if the state ran a deal where a prole gets 1000 bucks she guesses correctly a three digit number, and make it tax free, since the state is going to take the profit from the game.  
 
The catch is this: the state isn't claiming the winning number is chosen randomly.  Rather, the state gets everyone's guesses, then it gets to choose which is the winning number, which would be the least chosen number.  So it appears to the prole she has a 1 in 1000 chance at 1000 bucks, but the state always wins in that deal.  
 
That would be a cool game!  In fact, we could spice it up a bit by offering 1100 bucks to the winners.  The mathematically sophisticated proles might then calculate that they have a mathematical expectation of profit in this game: 1 buck for a 1 in 1000 chance at a tax-free 1100 bucks!  
 
Would you play?  Explain please.
 
spike
 

 

 
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