Estimated Value, Bankroll Management and Who Wants to be a Millionaire

[cursha]

thats just rubbish.... you gamble, have a punt, take a guess, pull on the straws.... Whats the point of living without risk.... Bring it on !

(some people call me a 'Lag' what does that mean ?)

[d10]

Strange. I haven't watched this show in years but it happened to be on a few days ago as I was flipping through the channels. I watched it for a bit and started thinking about all kinds of different situations where random guessing would be theoretically correct.

As others have mentioned, if you win the 16,000 question, you get a free shot at 64,000. This is the only reason why I would take a guess here if I was on the 16,000 question. Although if you miss the 16,000 question I still think you're guaranteed 1000 or something like that, so you're risking 15k to win 16k with a 1:1 chance of winning or losing. Slightly +EV but the variance is too high to take that risk. However when you consider that by guessing correctly you win 16k plus a free shot at winning another 32k on top of that, which is worth at a minimum 8k in EV (in actuality it's worth more since often you'll know enough about the question to make a better than random guess, but it's impossible to determine exactly how much more), this becomes too great a value to pass on.

[HigherAce]

+ev or not, if I get on a game show with a million dollar prize im either coming home with it all or the door prize... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[TheHammer24]

On the 16k you have a 50:50 shot at 32k. So it's slighlty EV right there to guess. Plus, as others have mentioned, you get a 25% chance of getting the 64k right, plus the chance of knowing ht answers to all of the other questions. Gotta go for it. I find myself yelling at the TV when they walk away with only two answers on the board.

[EverettKings]

There's a small problem of semantics. Has he won 16k and is guessing for 32k, or has he won 8k and is guessing for 16k?

I'm gonna assume he has 16 and is guessing for 32. Unless he will starve without the 16k, he should take it. Half the time he drops and wins 1k. Half the time he gets to a GUARANTEED 32k level where he can at least have a 1/4 shot at 64k. Also he's probably smart to be on here so he might just know the answer and have a 90-100% chance of getting another 32k on top. You get the idea.

The possibility of knowing the next question makes it worth a little gamble if he can afford it. I know the 16k is a lot to him, a year's salary, but that's not enough to retire on and will just help him along. Should he get the question right and know the next coupld and walk home with 128k.... then his life is in amazing shape.

If I were him I would physically pull out a quarter on the set, flip it, and pick.

Everett