Bird in the hand or a shot at the mother lode
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I don't know how many saw the Pepsi special last night, but it was interesting.
1000 people from all over had a chance for a Billion dollar win and one Would win a million.
All wrote down a six digit number, later a monkey picked six numbers.
The ten people who came the closest got on stage and had a chance to win big. One would win the million. Now they had a envelope with the name of the person whose number was the farthest away from the number the monkey picked. Now they offered $20,000 to anyone that wanted to take the money and give up the chance for the big pay day. No one took it and #10 left with nothing.
Next it was $30,000 and no one took it and #9 left with nothing.
Next it was $40,000 and had a taker. #8 + $40,000 Same with the others. #7 + $50,000 #6 + $60,000
#5 + $70,000 # 4 + $80,000 and number 3 + $90,000, Now down to two and the offer is $100,000 or nothing. Your odds of winning a million is now 50/50. So do you take the sure thing of $100,000 or go for the million ?
What if you were offered the $60,000 and your odds were 1 in 6 of winning the million. Do you take it ? -
50/50 for $1M vs $100K sure thing: I'd go for the Million. I'd feel like I'd be passing up too good a chance to make a big difference in my life. And while $100K would be nice to have in the short term, that's all it would be -- short term.
1 in 6 chance for $1M vs $60K sure thing: I'd take the $60K. A 1/6 chance at a million is not a good enough reason to pass up $60,000. -
Easy. I'd take the 100k and be as happy as a millionare. Because, I'd go to Vegas and hit the high limit BJ tables in the Bellagio. I'd then turn that 100k into a couple million within in a few days!! Then I'd invite everyone on this board to a trip out there, on my Bellagio comps! 8)
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I'd stick it out for the billion. Really!
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Okay, so when's the drawing for the billion dollars??
I would definitely go for the million if my odds were 50/50. You just dont pass up those kind of odds for $1000000! Also, I would take the sure 60K as 1 in 6 is only 16.67% which means it's not very likely to happen. Kind of like why some people play "Russian Roulette"... of course an EXTREMELY STUPID thing to do by risking their life, but nevertheless there are stupid people on this earth, a LOT. -
He won the Million dollars by being the closest to the monkeys number. To win the Billion dollars he had to match it exactly, all six numbers. He matched four.
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Any idea who wrote the insurance policy for the $billion?
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Is this show only a one-time deal or what?
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Mr. Ed- They did say who the insurance carrier was, but I don't remember which one it was. They did have a representative on hand that checked out everything they did.
Bug- I don't know if it will be on again or not. They may do another one, but I don't think it will ever be a weekly show.
p.s. I wonder what the premium is on one billion dollars..... -
I would guess the premium would be about $5 million. 1000 people pick a six digit number. At most, there are 1000 DIFFERENT numbers. Now there there are 1000 chances to get the right number out of 999,999, or 1 in 999.999; call it a 0.1% chance. 0.1% x $1 billion = $1 million. The insurer takes $4 million expected profit and charges $5 million.
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There were 1,000 people, But only TEN had a chance at the money. I must be the only one that watched it. :wink:
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midnite said:There were 1,000 people, But only TEN had a chance at the money. I must be the only one that watched it. :wink:
True, midnite, however Mr. Ed is stating it how the insurance company would view it from before the show took place. There is the possibility that any of those people could pick the correct set of 6 digits, not just the ten who made it onstage (remember, these people had the same chance of picking the exact number as everyone else)
And Mr. Ed, I think it would be 1,000,000, not 999,999 since there is the possibility of the number being all zeroes. (Although that doesn't change the amount too awful much. :wink: But i agree on your insurance findings... they had a very good chance of making off like bandits on that deal (or why else would they have taken it in the first place !?! :D )
Just my two cents, I guess... -
Yes, you would have to use all 1,000 people, as they all had a chance. They then picked the Ten, that had picked the number or came the closest to the number. It would be like hitting the lottery.
There was also a show about lottries on this week. A math guy figured out that, if you had a giant hat and put your best friends name in it, along with the name of every person in Canada, you would be more than two and a half times more likely to draw your friends name out of the hat than win the lottery. Talk about some long odds..... -
With all due respect, I was incorrect with my first post - only 10 people have a shot at the $billion. If one of the other 990 happened to pick the right number, it would do them no good, only the 10 had a chance.
Since 000000 is a valid number, I concede that I should have used 1,000,000 instead of 999,999.
But now comes the fun part: the expected loss (to the insurer) is
(10/1,000,000) x $1,000,000,000 = $10,000.
Now for the really fun part: You are the underwriter. You have a 99.999% chance of looking like a hero and bringing in (almost) 100% profit on this deal or a 0.001% chance of bankrupting the company, what do you charge for "risk"?
Even more fun - you are the CEO. What do you charge?
Note: in reality, it's not that dramatic - most like likely, this risk is shared among dozens of Reinsurers; each willing to take on, say, a $25 or $50 million risk - a big hit, for sure, but not enough to bankrupt the company. -
Mr. Ed said:With all due respect, I was incorrect with my first post - only 10 people have a shot at the $billion. If one of the other 990 happened to pick the right number, it would do them no good, only the 10 had a chance.
It is true that only 10 people made it up on stage, however each one of them had a shot at the billion dollars since each of them was given the chance to pick the correct number. Pepsi knew that not everyone would be right, and according to their rules, they picked the closest 10 to go on stage and play. It is true that 1 of the 10 there had a chance for the million dollars, as with the way the game went, anyone could leave it whenever they wanted, possibly forfeitting the million. But not looking at the $million game, to the insurance company they looked at it as there were a possible 1,000 / 1,000,000 people that could guess the correct number (they probably had provisions that if two people guessed the right number, both would split the $billion) therefore a 1/1,000 chance (0.001 chance).
C'mon all of you number people, jump in and set this thread straight, please!
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