Deal or No Deal

[VarlosZ]

[ QUOTE ]
If I was on the game the first offer I had over 10grand or so I'd take it just because I'm flat ass broke, no matter what the EV. And unless these people are millionares there's NO reason they should be rejecting these 100k+ offers even if it's -EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

Play the online game at nbc.com a few times, and you'll see how crazy this approach is. Your EV at the very start is over $130,000 (I worked it out, but forget the exact number). With the low offers they give you, there's no way you should accept anything until there are, say, 8 suitcases left. It's extremely unlikely that you'll wind up with less than $10K if you stop gambling around that time, and even then you'll usually be in a position to keep going for a little bit while getting odds you can't pass up and a variance you can stomach.

[lastchance]

Online gives you an idea the algorithm the bank uses to figure out their deal, and after a while, the correct strategy seems to be to whittle down to eight, and you get about 50% of EV around there. At 5, it's about 60%. At 4, it becomes about 70% of EV(going all the way), and at 3, it's about 90% of EV(going all the way).

The 4 to 3 jump is immense.

This game would be really nice to play compared to other game shows, where your EV looks to be about $20,000, max. With this, you're looking at an average EV of $100,000.

[1800GAMBLER]

the main factor for the algorithm is the variance between your decisions. the higher the variance the lower the ev. finish with $1m and $1 as your last boxes and they'll give you some real [censored] deals. awesome algorithm.

edit: for the online game.

[lastchance]

For the online game, they almost always give you 90+% of prize pool when it gets down to 3 and will be very quick to shaft you in a situation like the above.

Personally, if I was ever to play this game, I take a deal at 3 90% of the time, knowing that getting shafted the next round would suck.

[1800GAMBLER]

i just had a ton of times in which i was not offered 90% (more like 70%) of the EV because my variance was huge.

as i said above, the variance seems to be the main factor.

[lastchance]

I'm talking when it comes down to 3. I've gotten a deal for 90% of the prize pool almost every time I've played it.

[tpir90036]

[ QUOTE ]
If I was on the game the first offer I had over 10grand or so I'd take it just because I'm flat ass broke, no matter what the EV. And unless these people are millionares there's NO reason they should be rejecting these 100k+ offers even if it's -EV.

[/ QUOTE ]
the problem is that if you are doing well there is a good chance your next deal is going to be lower than the one you currently have. so taking the deal earlier might be a good play if you are going to get nervous and take a worse one later on. your EV for the current deal is kind of moot if you aren't going to go all the way and just settle for a lower (and still -EV) play at the end.

The calculator for the online version is screwy. When you're down to three cases left, they almost always make an offer above EV.

[tpir90036]

[ QUOTE ]
The calculator for the online version is screwy. When you're down to three cases left, they almost always make an offer above EV.

[/ QUOTE ]
yeah. it's safe to say the online calculator was just made up by some web person who wrote the flash thing.

i wish they would elaborate on what the banker is doing. i think it would be better if we knew he was [censored] with people and not just plugging numbers into something. or if we knew that he knew which case we had.

[moose47]

Is anybody else really hoping she just picked the million?