News For You: Deal or No Deal calculator

December 19, 2005

Deal or No Deal calculator

Related Entries
Snubster on All Things Considered

Time to quit facebook again

Facebook Petition?

So tonight on the way home from work I heard a radio ad for the new international hit coming for a 5 day event on NBC. Suckered by marketing as I usually am, I decided to watch this new show : Deal or No Deal.

First of all the show is hosted by Howie Mandell.

What the heck happend to howie?

Anyways back to the show. Basically the premise of the show is this. There are 26 suitcases. They all have a value from 1 penny to a million dollars. At the beginning of a turn, a player picks one suitcase. Then he or she must pick 5 suitcases to reveal from the ones remaining. After that, the person is allowed to accept a "deal" from a "banker" instead of keeping the unknown amount in the suitcase he picked.

This game seems like a great game for people who are bad at math. My guess is that NBC will calculate an expected value based on the suitcases remaining. Most likely the value that they give to the contestant will be less than this value.

Being the nerd I was, I decided to make a play along webpage that will allow you to "play along" and see if this holds true.

If this holds true, it will seem to always make sense to play to the very end.

Link to the Deal no Deal Calculator

Posted by Bryant at December 19, 2005 10:29 PM

i saw the premiere episode. they actually take the value and then round up to the nearest thousand dollars. so they are not giving these people a bad deal, they are just hopeful that they will gamble and keep picking and they usually do. the key is clearly not to go all the way to the end because then you have a 50% chance of getting something less than or equal to 700$. Obviously you have a better judgement as the game goes along, but i would think that it is smart to take the deal in a lot of cases. as was the case when the first player went. she had 3 suitcases on the stage plus her one. one of the suitcases that were left was a 500000 one. the otheres were less than 50000. se was offered 138000 and turneed it down. on the next reveal she picked the 500,000 suitcase. the next deal given was for 25000, which she took. so essentially she had a 1/4 chance that she would have gotten more money than 138K, and she took it....which is just dumb.

btw, her suitcases had 500 dollars in it. the initial odds never change even though you keep revealing. that is why it is better in most cases to take the deal. especially if it is over 130K (the initial average of all the values)

Posted by: jake at December 22, 2005 11:47 AM

Each round the % of statistical value offered increased. Based on a test sample of 11 trials, using the web game version, the average offer amount for each round was:
1. 21.7% of expected value
2. 28.1%
3. 36.3%
4. 45.2%
5. 54.6%
6. 74.4%
7. 87.6%
8. 115.5%
9. 82.9%

Posted by: Stu at January 2, 2006 02:18 AM

I WATCHED THIS SHOW IN CA. LAST WEEK.WHAT CHANNEL IS IT ON IN SAN ANTONIO, TX.

Posted by: BILL BARKER at January 5, 2006 10:23 PM

Your calculator is wrong, due to the fact that it does not calculate expected returns and weighting of the remaining suitcases. Each suitcase carries a different weight based upon the value that it holds and the percentage of total money that is available on the board. Calculate the weight of the reminaing suitcases that are left on the board - divide each by the total amount of money, then multiply by the possibility of each. Then you will reach a much more accurate approximation.

Posted by: Finance at February 28, 2006 08:56 PM

Not sure I follow your explanation there. could you explain your equation?

But i'm not sure its correct to assign different "weighted possibilities" to each suitcase.

Each suitcase has a specified value and an equal chance of being selected as the outcome suitcase.

Posted by: Bryant at March 1, 2006 02:12 AM

A real example:

In the current episode the player had $400, $1000, $500,000 and $1,000,000 remaining and the offer is $357,000.

She opened the $500,000 (leaving $400, $1000 and a mil) and the offer dropped to $215,000 which she took.

The continued to play it out, she opened the $1000 and the offer was $500,000.

The case she had picked had $1,000,000 in it.

Statistically speaking I think she should have stopped at the $357k offer. Four cases left, a 50/50 chance of $500k or more (or less) and 1/3 of a mil in your pocket.

Posted by: D Smith at April 26, 2006 08:48 PM

I am looking for a tool like your Deal or No Deal calculator that I can download and use offline. We would like to use it for a team building game. Can you let me know if there is any way to get something like you've posted on your website?

Posted by: Leslie at May 17, 2006 09:07 PM

Do you offer your calculator as an offline program? I would really like to use it for our office Christmas party!

Thanks!

Posted by: Chelsea at September 15, 2006 09:53 PM

I have a calculator like this, written in java which does the exact thing, exact not graphical. Contact me to get the program

Posted by: al at November 7, 2006 08:51 PM

I have a calculator like this, written in java which does the exact thing, exact not graphical. Contact me to get the program

Posted by: al at November 7, 2006 08:52 PM

carisoprodol soma carisoprodol soma

Posted by: carisoprodol soma at January 23, 2007 05:50 AM

soma carisoprodol soma carisoprodol

Posted by: soma carisoprodol at January 29, 2007 10:29 AM