Question

Missing Dollar Riddle

Answer 1

"Three people check into a hotel room. The clerk says the bill is $30, so each guest pays $10. Later the clerk realizes the bill should only be $25. To rectify this, he gives the bellhop $5 to return to the guests. On the way to the room, the bellhop realizes that he cannot divide the money equally. As the guests didn't know the total of the revised bill, the bellhop decides to just give each guest $1 and keep $2 as a tip for himself. Each guest got $1 back, so now each guest only paid $9, bringing the total paid to $27. The bellhop has $2. And $27 + $2 = $29 so, if the guests originally handed over $30, what happened to the remaining $1?"

Answer 2

hint: there is something about the original calculation that is misleading

Answer 3

I think you need to ask what the 27 + 2 is calculating.

27 is what the guests collectively chipped in after the 1 refund. so, for example, calculation 27 = 25 + 2 makes sense because, in the end, the hotel gets 25 and the bell hop keeps 2. and 3 x 9 = 27 which is what the guests chipped in.

27 + 2 is adding what the guests chipped, after the 1 refund, to what the bell boy kept. a meaningful calculation is 27 - 2 = 25, which is the underbelly of the fraud. they should only have chipped in a collective 25. the bell boy stole 2.

nice problem, unsatisfactory solution :(