A Decision Making Error - Easy Question

[David Sklansky]

The answer that I was looking for and the one that has general implications was that the gift that lost the head up contest could still easily be more likely to win in a five way contest. In other words many of the 40% would choose it first among five but not so for the 60% who chose the other gift. If I had told you that the losing gift was a Mickey Mantle, (I think) autographed baseball the answer would have been obvious.

[Buccaneer]

I bet this was when Stupak over booked and two gifts you speak of were 1) an ass whipping in the back alley by security thugs and his ugliest coctail waitress or 2) a shuttle to the thunderbird MOTEL where the dumpsters were cleaner than most of the rooms and you would be staying for the full 3 days of your Free Vegas Vacation at Vegas World.

(I took the ass whipping)

[gwhiz_612]

[ QUOTE ]
Upon checking in to the hotel under his package deal the guest had a choice among five "gifts". They cost Bob about twenty bucks though he placed a $200 or so retail value on them.

One of the gifts became unavailable to him. So he had to find a replacement He had it narrowed down to two possibilities. To make his decision he conducted an experiment where only those two gifts were offerred to about a thousand patrons. About 60% picked gift A. So Bob was about to choose that to be added to the five gift menu. I knew what the two candidate gifts were and insisted that he picked the wrong one. (To tell you what the gifts were would be too much of a hint.) He asked how I could possibly go against the statistical evidence. To which I replied what?

[/ QUOTE ] If the demand for gift A is greater why not sell it for the inflated retail and offer the gift (B) of lesser interest as a 'free' item. Of course I am assuming that these are gifts that are available in a gift shop hence the gift menu.

[crookedhat99]

What was the winning gift?

[Shandrax]

The winning gift was A-Ko, the losing gift was 9-8s.

Now what did Bob say?
A. You are a genius!
B. Leave me alone with your math stuff.
C. Let me think about it.

[Eagles]

[ QUOTE ]
I bet this was when Stupak over booked and two gifts you speak of were 1) an ass whipping in the back alley by security thugs and his ugliest coctail waitress or 2) a shuttle to the thunderbird MOTEL where the dumpsters were cleaner than most of the rooms and you would be staying for the full 3 days of your Free Vegas Vacation at Vegas World.

(I took the ass whipping)

[/ QUOTE ]
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