A Thought Experiment / Puzzle to Entertain You
- On the first day of every month, each person who wants to play produces a single penny, which they will use to play the game.
- Each player flips his/her coin once, with one of the following results:
- Tails: The player is eliminated from the game, and the penny he/she was using is paid as the cost of participating.
- Heads: The player is still in the game and continues to the next round.
- Repeat (2) until:
- There is only one player left, who is the lottery winner, OR
- There are no players left (because all remaining players flipped tails in one round), and there is no winner for the month.
- If there is a winner, that person gets the total amount paid by all players. In other words, the prize money is calculated in dollars as: (total number of participants) / 100.
However, on months when there is no winner, the government will take in the full $3 million as income with no pay-out.
The cost to the government of administering this lottery is $1 million per month.
Here is the question: Assuming 300 million people play every month, will the government make money or lose money with this system?
Assume that the pennies used all have a perfectly 50/50 chance of coming up heads or tails when flipped, and that there is no possibility of cheating by either the players or the government.