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Deal or No Deal
2005 · TV series · 6 seasons
Created by John de Mol
A contestant must choose from 26 sealed briefcases containing a marker for various amounts of cash from one penny to $1 million. The player then eliminates the remaining 25 cases one by one. The chosen ones are opened and the amount of money inside revealed. After several cases are opened, the player is tempted by the Banker to accept an offer of cash in exchange for not continuing the game and possibly winning a larger sum of money.
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1 comment on Hacker News
If the host's first reveal is randomly chosen, when you get down to two doors left each of them has a 1/3 chance of containing the car. Thus switching, at this point, is a 50-50 proposition. Or 1/3 to 1/3 if that makes more sense. Switching is the advantageous move only when the host always reveals a zonk first, and that's why it does in fact matter "how the TV show operates."
Another show, Deal or No Deal, often came down to 2 suitcases (from an initial 26), one of which was worth a six-figure amount and the other a tiny amount. Something like $200,000 vs $500. The logic of the Monty Hall problem would suggest that since the player had 1/26 chance of initially choosing $200,000, they should switch suitcases at the end. But because all 24 previous reveals were random, there is actually no advantage to doing so.