You look at a carnival game. The person running it says, "Just reach your hand into this bag. There are 9 yellow balls and 1 red ball in the bag. You get 4 chances to pull out the red ball. (You have to put the ball you drew back before you draw another ball.) You only have to pay one dollar to play, and you get 3 dollars if you pull out the red ball!"

Assuming the person running the game is telling the truth, and the balls only differ in color, would you expect to make a net profit or a net loss on this game?

(In reply to re(3): Solution by Charlie)

Uh, Charlie, I think you got an inequality backwards. Shouldn't line 7 of your program read:

IF RND(1) > .3439

??

Since the chance of losing the first round is 65.61%, there is no way that, starting with $1, you will win up to $100 almost 65% of the time.

Posted by Brian Wainscott on 2003-09-18 16:49:37