In the game, deal or no deal, there's 2 final cases, one of which has the million, keep yours or switch?

Question

The senario from the movie "21": you're on a game show where there are three doors, behind one is a car and the other two have goats. You choose a door and the host shows one of the doors you did not choose to reveal a goat. Now there are two doors, one with a car and one with a goat. The host gives you the option to switch your choice to the other door. Statistically you should ALWAYS switch your decion because you have a 67% chance (or so) of getting the car that way.

Does the same follow for deal or no deal?

The way I see it is this: suppose there are 26 cases in the game you have a 1 out of 26 chance of choosing the million there for a 25 out of 26 chance of choosing not a million. Therefore at the end of the game when there are two cases left should you choose to switch cases, you have a 25 out of 26 chance of getting the million.

Am I right?

Answer 1

The Monty Hall scenario does not apply to Deal or No Deal because in the Monty Hall scenario, Monty is opening the door that he KNOWS doesn't have the car behind it.  In Deal or No Deal, the contestant is making all of selections based on completely unknown information.  The majority of the time, the million dollar case is opened well before there are two cases left anyway.  The only way the situations would be the same is if after you pick your case on Deal, Howie opens 24 other cases that he KNOWS do not have a million, and then asks you to switch.  Then, you would be correct but since the contestant is eliminating cases randomly without actual knowledge of their contents, the scenarios are not the same.

Answer 2

"This problem appears similar to the television show Deal or No Deal, however with each selection the Deal or No Deal player is just as likely to open the winning box as a losing one. Monty on the other hand, knows the contents and is forbidden from revealing the winner. Assuming the grand prize is still left with two boxes remaining, the Deal or No Deal player has a 50/50 chance that the initially selected box contains the grand prize."

Answer 3

No, ur chance is still one out of two.

anyway, what's the value of the other box supposed to be in this situation of yours??

Answer 4

I'm not sure I understand the logic here.

In the first game show you talked about you have a one in three chance of picking the car.  Once one of the goats has been removed, assuming there is no knowledge what is behind the two remaining doors, I don't understand how swapping your original choice would make any difference.  There are two doors left, if there is no knowledge of which is which, you have a 50/50 chance of winning the car.

As for deal or no deal, you pick a case at the beginning, once all but two cases are eliminated you have a 50/50 chance that your case contains the million.  I don't see how switching the case improves your odds of winnings.

The best possible scenario is that the two remaining cases contain $750K and $1m.  Let's say the banker offers you $900K.  You have to decide if you want to risk winning an extra $100K or losing $150K.

But odds are if you are lucky you will have a million and a much smaller amount in the two last cases.  So you are going to have to take a fairly big risk to win the million.  That's why unless it's one of those special shows with more than one case containing a million, most people are going to accept the deal before it ever coming to the last two cases.  But even if you get to the final two, you are going to take a pretty serious risk to win the million.  Swapping the final two cases won't make a difference.

Answer 5

yup.

if you get to choose to switch in the end. lol

because in the monty hall paradox you only get the car IF you picked the wrong door(box) in the first place.

and the chances of getting the wrong door (box) is 25/26 which is 96%.

but the problem is how to get to that scenario in the first place.

lol

sounds like you already know though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_...