Re: DOND on More 4 tonight - Why not to gamble (spoiler)

On Oct 29, 7:12 pm, Ed <Edward.A.Bow...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Bloke had two small blue amounts, plus £50,000, £100,000 and £250,000
remaining.

Offer was £37,500

He didn't deal, then took out the £100,000 and his offer fell to
£20,000 (ish)

He said no deal again, then took out the £250,000 and his offer fell
to £6,000

And didn't deal, and the poor b.gger took out the £50,000 and his
offer fell to nothing (ish)

He fell to the floor and cried like a girl

I'm not sure that is a lesson in not gambling, although there is a
lesson to be learnt.

If, for the sake of easy mathmatics, we say that the two small blue
amounts were zero he would have an agregate prize fund of £400k, at an
average of £80k. Against that, an offer of £37.5k is less than half
of the average amount remaining.

To look at it differently, there was a slim chance of him picking the
3 large amounts in that way:
- at the first round there was a 3/5 chance of picking a large sum;
- at the second round there was a 2/4 chance of picking a large sum;
and
- at the third round there was a 1/3 chance of picking the remaining
large sum;

3/5 x 2/4 x 1/3 = 10%

So this isn't a lesson in not gambling. Rather, it's a reminder that
when you gamble you sometimes lose even if the odds appear to be in
your favour.



In the circumstances, gambling was the right thing to do if he was
playing the odds.
.

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