Whats the odds, Deal or no deal show.

S

StaroftheSea

Registered User
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114
there are 8 boxes left, 1 red and 7 blue. The player has said 'no deal' and so must continue to pick three boxes and hopefully avoid the red one. what are the chances of him actually picking the red one over the next round?
 
Has to be among the worst TV shows ever invented. I've only seen it once, so I'm not sure I'm understanding the situation right, but I figure it this way:

Chances of NOT picking the red box on first pick: 7/8
Chances of NOT picking it on second pick: 6/7
Chances of NOT picking it on third pick: 5/6

These are all independent probabilities, so multiply them to get the probability of NOT picking the red box on any of the next three picks. That comes out to 7/8 x 6/7 x 5/6 = (7 x 6 x 5) / (8 * 7 * 6) = 210 / 336 = 62.5%.

Since picking the red box and NOT picking it are mutually exclusive possibilities, the chance of picking it are 1 - 62.5%, or 37.5%.

That is, a little better than 1 in 3.
 
What about this?

chance of picking Red first time = 1/8
chance of picking Red second time = 1/7
chance of picking Red third time = 1/6

so add these...
1/8 + 1/7 + 1/6 =


21/168 + 24/168 + 28/168


= 73 / 168


= approx 43%

Maybe the problem is that if the Red box is picked on the first (or second) pick it throws the calculations.
 
OK, I'm wrong above..

It makes no sense to add probabilities as I have done... i would have to agree now with the other guy, I knew an answer of around 35% to 40% would be about right, 43% seemed too high.

Cheers

There was a good show the other day, the girl never did a deal and won 100,000.. it looked really bad at one stage.

Then again, at five boxes to go she had the three biggest left... 250K, 100K, 35K, 1K (?) and 750 pounds.. the deal came in at 31K, she refused (and was right)...
(edited to add, deal offer may have been higher, I seem to remember an offer of 51K)

Next round.. she lost the 250K, then the 35K, then the 1K I think, (not sure about order).. nailbiting!!!! She only had the 100K and the 750 pounds... my god!

Deal was 13K... she refused (again right, you never seem to get the odds to deal, always less, but you can't always afford to lose)..

So she refused, kept her box, it was opened for 100K!!! Yes! She took a huge risk, could only have been 750 pounds.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My wife is hooked on this show. I cannot get my head around it at all, much as I have tried. Two issues in particular seem no brainers.
1. Why when the game is over do they bother to open another box to see what was in it ? What possible interest could there be in a hypotetical situation ?
2. Invariably the "banker" offers a derisory amount of around 35% of the difference between the blue & red values. Once I watched when there were only 2 boxes left. One had £10 & the other £25,000. Banker made a "buy out" offer of £8,000 & the idiot accepted. I am not a regular punter but surely £25,000 - £10 = £24,900. When divided by 2 this comes to £12,450. Why on earth would anybody in their right mind take these very one sided odds yet this is almost always the case?
 
battyee said:
1. Why when the game is over do they bother to open another box to see what was in it ? What possible interest could there be in a hypotetical situation ?
Click to expand...

Just to show nothing dogey is going on I suppose.


That's the beauty of the game. Not taking the 8k is a no brainier looking at the math , but do you take the risk ?


8k is a good pile of money , it will pay off your car and clear those credit cards with a nice holiday. Do you risk heading home with £10.

If you get to take the risk 50 time it's easy , but this is your one chance on the show.
 
He he lol..

Yeah, that's the beauty of the show.. of course no one should ever deal but that means that some people will lose large amounts... totally sick sometimes.

Some guy lost the four biggest amounts in the correct order in his first four goes... something like 600,000 to 1 against doing that. What a muppet! Other people have simply gone one round too far and refused large deals only to end up with tiny amounts.
 
There was one last week there a guy went in one round from an offer of £20k to an offer of a dozen eggs. Now that's just sick.
 

Actually 25,000 - 10 = 24,990... divided by 2 = 12,495

But the correct, fair, payout would be
(25,000 + 10) / 2 = 12,505


Anyway I wonder what the offer would be if you were left with two boxes, the two biggest, 250K and 100K... I'd say the offer would be around 150K, I suppose you'd really have to say 'No Deal' to that and take the great odds you're being offered..

The problem is when you have 250K left and also, say, 1K.. and the deal value is 30K, it's much harder to say 'no deal' there as you could end up with close to nothing.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure the mathematical odds come into it. The risk of walking away with practically nothing versus the upside of a large win will be something that each "contestant" weighs differently. For some it will be extra spending money, for others a life-changing event. I can only assume that this slightly voyeuristic aspect is what attracts the viewing audience. I mean, there is no skill whatsoever involved and to me it seems about as riveting as the time I fell across "Winning Streak" (or whatever it's called) on RTE -- before I realised it was just a lottery -- where "contestants" seemed to be required to do nothing for their prizes. I mean, there must be some paint drying somewhere that is more worth watching!
 
Yeah Dub Nerd, My sentiments exactly & even worse when the bloody deal is done why open another box to see what might have happened if game continued ?
 
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