Question

A board is comprised of 50 red squares and 50 white squares. You are then given three balls. The balls are then thrown into the board. You then bet on the color majority of the balls will fall into. If you are right, then you win your bet. If not, then you lose your bet. However, on the board are two stars. If you bet on the stars, and any one of your balls fall into the stars, then you win five times your bet. If you lose, you lose five times your bet. Should you play this game?

Answer 1

how big are the stars?

Answer 2

one square

Answer 3

each star

Answer 4

if a ball crosses a star does it automatically fall in /

Answer 5

it has to stop on the square

Answer 6

ok

Answer 7

imagine it as a casino game. each square of the board have walls

Answer 8

stars are neither red or white are they

Answer 9

the point is there are stars on the board..and they are on one of the squares of the board. they are still considered as red/white squares

Answer 10

oh so there is a red star and a white star , ok

Answer 11

you can think of it like that

Answer 12

this is more of a riddle than a math problem. who throws the balls? are we looking at percentages? Chance/probability?

Answer 13

it's definitely a problem

Answer 14

\[\langle \text{expectation value}\rangle\]

Answer 15

no need to think about who throws the balls...and yes @UnkleRhaukus

Answer 16

\[\langle \text{expectation value}\rangle\sim0.45\]

Answer 17

why so?

Answer 18

just a guess

Answer 19

...

Answer 20

i think betting on red or white would have even wins/losses

Answer 21

yes that's what i think too

Answer 22

so would you play it?

Answer 23

well in an even chance game i would expect to get my money back on average but i could still looses all my money , so i wouldn't bet one red/white

Answer 24

what about the stars?

Answer 25

the probability of the first ball landing on a star is 2/100
a

Answer 26

so.. no play?

Answer 27

i havent worked out the probability of any of the three balls landing on a star is yet, but i recon it is less than on in five

so i would not bet on this game

Answer 28

makes sense