deal or no deal

[Duncan Smith]

Rocco Moretti wrote:
> rbt wrote:
> 
>> The TV show on NBC in the USA running this week during primetime (Deal
>> or No Deal). I figure there are roughly 10, maybe 15 contestants. They
>> pick a briefcase that has between 1 penny and 1 million bucks and then
>> play this silly game where NBC tries to buy the briefcase from them
>> while amounts of money are taken away from the list of possibilities.
>> The contestant's hope is that they've picked a briefcase with a lot of
>> money and that when an amount is removed from the list that it is
>> small amount of money not a large amount (I categorize a large amount
>> to be more than 100,000)
> 
> 
> Well, if the contestants' choices are truly random, and they stick with
> their first choice all the way to the end, each contestant wins, on
> average, $131 477.54 (sum(amounts)/len(amounts)).
> 
> Assuming that the buyout offer is always less than (or equal to) the
> average of the still-available amounts, NBC will (on average) never have
> to pay out more than ~$132k per contestant. Likely they'll pay out less,
> because most people will get nervous before the very end, and will take
> the low ball offer NBC is fronting.
> 
> What I would really like to know, is how they calculate the offer.
> Obviously, they set the upper limit at the average of the still standing
> offers, but I wonder if and how they take subsequent rounds into
> consideration.

I've seen them offer more than the average towards the end of the game
(UK version).

Duncan