Author Topic: Money or Mo' Money? (Read 4497 times)

Speedy G · « **on:** December 21, 2005, 07:21:16 PM »

I just whipped up a small C++ program to step through the possible combinations of cases that can be left when it gets down to 6 cases remaining. I had my program calculate the average value of the cases remaining, and assumed that the banker would offer that much money. It counted up the number of outcomes where the average value of the cases was larger than various values.

Yeah, we've got a serious case of Mo Money going on with USA DoND:

Out of 230,230 possible sets of six cases from the 26:

Offers > 100K 56.99% 131206
Offers > 50K 78.65% 181082
Offers > 10K 93.32% 214851
Offers > 1K 98.37% 226486
Offers < 1K 1.62% 3741
Offers 90K-110K 6.57% 15136

Yeah, you've got better than a 50/50 shot at a 100K+ offer, every time. I'm guessing that's what they want... until the budget explodes.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #1 on:** December 21, 2005, 10:44:15 PM »

[quote name=\'Speedy G\' date=\'Dec 21 2005, 08:21 PM\']Yeah, you've got better than a 50/50 shot at a 100K+ offer, every time. I'm guessing that's what they want... until the budget explodes.[/quote]
If they want to give away a couple hundred thousand dollars in an hour of prime-time television, the budget isn't going to explode anytime soon. You can be sure those numbers take a nosedive if this thing makes daily syndication.

goongas · « **Reply #2 on:** December 21, 2005, 11:00:51 PM »

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Dec 21 2005, 11:44 PM\'][quote name=\'Speedy G\' date=\'Dec 21 2005, 08:21 PM\']Yeah, you've got better than a 50/50 shot at a 100K+ offer, every time. I'm guessing that's what they want... until the budget explodes.[/quote]
If they want to give away a couple hundred thousand dollars in an hour of prime-time television, the budget isn't going to explode anytime soon. You can be sure those numbers take a nosedive if this thing makes daily syndication.

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I would guess if it went to syndication they would divide the higher values on the board by 10.

LA the DJ · « **Reply #3 on:** December 21, 2005, 11:14:35 PM »

[quote name=\'goongas\' date=\'Dec 21 2005, 11:00 PM\']I would guess if it went to syndication they would divide the higher values on the board by 10.

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"And in your case, which you decided to keep...We have... 1/10 cent! Oh no!"

clemon79 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 21, 2005, 11:26:13 PM »

[quote name=\'nWo_Whammy\' date=\'Dec 21 2005, 08:14 PM\']"And in your case, which you decided to keep...We have... 1/10 cent! Oh no!"

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Note that he did say _higher_ values.

(It's still a silly overassumption, as even a division by 10 would require some board refurbishing, bit still.)

tvwxman · « **Reply #5 on:** December 22, 2005, 08:12:39 AM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Dec 21 2005, 11:26 PM\'][quote name=\'nWo_Whammy\' date=\'Dec 21 2005, 08:14 PM\']"And in your case, which you decided to keep...We have... 1/10 cent! Oh no!"

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Note that he did say _higher_ values.

(It's still a silly overassumption, as even a division by 10 would require some board refurbishing, bit still.)

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I'm of the opinion that by making the values lower, you have a more engaging game. Check the UK money tree out. Values range from 1p to 250,000 pounds...but only the top 5 boxes have 30,000 or more...which means that

a: there is a smaller chance of winning major bucks , which leads to
b: a LOT more tension in making some of those last decisions. Take a 'decent' offer by the bank, or REALLY run the risk of walking out with a small wage.

clemon79 · « **Reply #6 on:** December 22, 2005, 10:38:26 AM »

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 05:12 AM\']I'm of the opinion that by making the values lower, you have a more engaging game.
[/quote]
Oh, I in no way disagree. I was just saying that the answer wasn't gonna be as simple as a division by 10. That board needs quite an overhaul.

DrJWJustice · « **Reply #7 on:** December 22, 2005, 10:41:11 AM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 10:38 AM\'][quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 05:12 AM\']I'm of the opinion that by making the values lower, you have a more engaging game.
[/quote]
Oh, I in no way disagree. I was just saying that the answer wasn't gonna be as simple as a division by 10. That board needs quite an overhaul.

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What about just doing it weekly? Maybe twice weekly? I can't see this going daily just yet in this country. Now, the Aussies did, and they did severly overhaul their board from a top prize of A$2 million to A$200,000.

goongas · « **Reply #8 on:** December 22, 2005, 11:05:48 AM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 11:38 AM\'][quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 05:12 AM\']I'm of the opinion that by making the values lower, you have a more engaging game.
[/quote]
Oh, I in no way disagree. I was just saying that the answer wasn't gonna be as simple as a division by 10. That board needs quite an overhaul.

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I didn't mean to imply that a simple division by 10 was enough. I had just thought about the the very high values.

Brig Bother · « **Reply #9 on:** December 22, 2005, 11:24:41 AM »

[quote name=\'DrJWJustice\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 03:41 PM\'][quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 10:38 AM\'][quote name=\'tvwxman\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 05:12 AM\']I'm of the opinion that by making the values lower, you have a more engaging game.
[/quote]
Oh, I in no way disagree. I was just saying that the answer wasn't gonna be as simple as a division by 10. That board needs quite an overhaul.

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What about just doing it weekly? Maybe twice weekly? I can't see this going daily just yet in this country. Now, the Aussies did, and they did severly overhaul their board from a top prize of A$2 million to A$200,000.

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But you need to look at the Aussie tree really. In the daily show it's 200k, 100k, 75k, 50k, 25k (which is quite hard and drops off quite steeply), but big money shows are 2m, 1m, 500k, 250k, 100k, 75k, 50k. There's a *massive* exciting premium on the big money cases which is watered down somewhat by having lots of big money cases like you have at the moment.

clemon79 · « **Reply #10 on:** December 22, 2005, 11:58:01 AM »

[quote name=\'goongas\' date=\'Dec 22 2005, 08:05 AM\']I didn't mean to imply that a simple division by 10 was enough. I had just thought about the the very high values.

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Fair enough then, and I happen to agree, I think $100K on a daily syndicated show (espeically one that would likely be a half hour, with a single contestant per day, and rarely paying out that number) is a reasonable top prize, especially with a devalued AUS$200K being The Big One Down Under. (Hah! I kill me.

But a couple other things need to happen: The board needs to be smaller, I'm thinking 20 cases at the MOST. And the range needs to be not nearly as topheavy, since that is what is making the early rounds of this version such a moot point.