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(2): solution by Bart freeman)

The whole idea is that if you get a red ball at any time in those first 4 draws you can count it as success for that trial, where as your method only takes one drawing into consideration, so if you get the ball wrong the first time you don't have 3 more draws to do; the trial has ended in failure.

Posted by Gamer on 2003-09-19 17:38:20