The Jeopardy 3-way tie

[alThor]

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They all 3 get the full amount, plus he gets to play the weak players again, so no idiot.

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Yeah, I always wondered why the leaders normally bet to win by $1 rather than play for the tie.

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If your opposition is strong, you don't want to play them again.

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And if you're in the lead, your opposition isn't strong.

[sfetaz]

I do not believe there is any legitimacy to using probability in this scenario. You cannot predict someones strategy in the game when it comes to final jeopardy wagering. Too many posibilities exist, and when you consider people's intellegence and judgement, there is no such thing as a measureable statistic. Some people argue the leader wanted a tie to be able to play the same opponents again. There are other people out there who simply want to win and move on, never thinking of that. Think of the person in last place as well. Many last place people have bet $1 or even $0. The strategy here has to be assumed to be that you don't care whether or not you get it right, you just want the others get it wrong and bid enough to go below your current amount, making you champion. Others feel they have to get it right and bet it all to have any chance. A leader generally bids one dollar more than double the 2nd place person's current amount. This ensures that if they both get it right, he wins, if they both get it wrong, and the assumption is that the 2nd place guy bet it all, you still win. But many other factors can influence a persons decision. Once a human's decision on a strategy takes place in a situation like this, there is no such thing as the probability of an event occuring.

It's like saying you can predict which party will win the election based on historical data. Lets assume there have been 65% democratic presidents and 35% republicans (not real data by any means). Does that mean there is a 65% chance a democrate will win the election? Hell no!