I have a million £ and want to give you some of it....

Nitefly said:
I don't really follow that - it's just an individual weighing up of risk and reward, Shirley?

Basically if we don't think like you we are poor or stupid :p
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nah it is just stating a fact 50 is optimum in terms of £s

but £s don't always equal utility....

for some people getting a certain amount would be hugely beneficial to their lives but above that amount and the benefit tapers off... i.e. poor people

change the question to say 100 billion and a lot more people will pick lower numbers and give up some ev.... after all it is the first billion that makes the biggest difference to the lives of 99.9999.. % of people
 
90 at the end of the day if I win I'm much better off if I don't well Im in the exact same posistion as before. If I had to risk somthing myself then of course it would be completely different.

Stats wise 50 would be the best (I think) but certainly would kick myself if you picked 95 when I went 50 being safe :D.
 
To all those that pick #1 for a guaranteed £10k...

Would you even consider picking #2, for an "almost guaranteed" £20k ? would that gamble not be worth it?
 
My initial gut reaction was 10-20, That £100-200k would change my life drastically as I could afford to quit my job and move to a lower paid one (Less stress, Less travel, Less hassle) and have an overall better quality of life without a mortgage. Although if playing games has taught me anything...90% chances of winning fail far more than they bloody should do...Lady luck is a fickle mistress at best... So I'd probably go for 1-5
 
dowie said:
nah it is just stating a fact 50 is optimum in terms of £s
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It's the most money you could win when restricting your choices to those which give you more chance at winning than losing - but unless there is a mathematical use for the word which is escaping me, I don't think that necessarily makes it 'optimum'!

OcUK - where needless semantics over word use is serious business :p
 
If you choose n, then the expected payoff is proportional to n * p(n), where p(n) is the probability of winning if n is chosen. p(n)=(101-n)/100, so the expectation is maximised for n= 50 or 51.

(Warning: I haven't yet had a cup of coffee this morning, so my brain isn't really working yet.)
 
I could use a 1 right now but the gambler in me says 20 is a pretty good chance of winning too.
 
1.

£10k would clear all my debts and leave me with enough for a rather nice family holiday. Thanks OP, I'll go to Thomas Cook at lunchtime :D

It's an interesting question because if I were a gambling man I'd have gone in around 10-20, but then there's still that chance of losing. I'd rather have a guaranteed £10k than a 90% chance of £100k.
 
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estebanrey said:
Sadly I don't and nor is this a spam Nigerian scam post either. More of a conundrum....

So [hypothetically] I have a £1m and agree to risk giving you some of it on a couple of conditions...

A) You freely pick a number between 1 and 100 and you get that multiplied by £10,000

B) The number you pick must be lower than or equal to the raffle ticket number I subsequently pull out of a box with 1-100 in.

So if you pick 56 and the number I pull out is 78 then you get £560,000. But if I pulled out 55 then you'd get nothing.

So what number do you pick? Do you go for something like 50 and have a 50/50 chance of winning half a million? Do you go for something like 90 thinking the 1 in 10 chance of getting £900k is worth the gamble, or do you go for a lower number with the attitude of you'd rather have a high chance of something than a low chance of a lot?

There is no 'right' answer, more of an insight into how people think.
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I'd pick 45, as on average when asked to pick a number between 1-10/10-100 people tend to go for the middle higher end - with many likely I bet to go in at around 50 or 60 thinking they are playing it safe.
 
Statistically speaking 50:50 is the way to go, using the probability of success multiplied by the reward as a ranking.

Meanwhile you'd be silly to pick too far to the extreme i.e. picking 1 rather than 2 would be very dumb, as you're only 1% more likely to win, yet win half as much.

Similarly picking 99 rather than 98, yes you win 10,000 more, but you halve what are already slim chances.

When you take into account real life circumstances and diminishing returns of more money, 40 seems a solid choice
 
I would go for about 15 - 20. Enough to leave me with a fairly minimal mortgage, or something decent to invest, with a good chance of the win.

sbi5ar said:
To all those that pick #1 for a guaranteed £10k...

Would you even consider picking #2, for an "almost guaranteed" £20k ? would that gamble not be worth it?
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If you had £10k already, would you risk doubling it at the risk of, approx, 1% chance of losing it all? Depends how much losing that £10k would hurt, I suppose.
 
dl8860 said:
Statistically speaking 50:50 is the way to go, using the probability of success multiplied by the reward as a ranking.

Meanwhile you'd be silly to pick too far to the extreme i.e. picking 1 rather than 2 would be very dumb, as you're only 1% more likely to win, yet win half as much.

Similarly picking 99 rather than 98, yes you win 10,000 more, but you halve what are already slim chances.

When you take into account real life circumstances and diminishing returns of more money, 40 seems a solid choice
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If you were able to play lots of times, say 10 goes at getting multiples of £1k, going for 50 would be the sensible choice. In reality (or "reality"), you have one bite at getting potentially life-changing (or, at least, life affecting) amounts of cash - so favouring getting something, almost anything, rather than risking getting nothing is going to be optimum for those for whom the cash is going to have the most significant impact. I'd say 40 is too high for most people.
 
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