Question

A lottery ticket costs $5. You pick 3 two-digit numbers (anything from 00 to 99) in order. If you match the first number only, you win $200. If you match the first two numbers and not the third, you win $5000. If you match all three numbers, you win $100,000. In two or more complete sentences, explain whether or not the game is fair. In your explanation, include all necessary calculations.

Answer 1

00 to 99 are 100 numbers.

If you match the first number only, you win $200. The Probability for this is 1/100.

If you match the first two numbers and not the third, you win $5000. The Probability for this is 1/50.

If you match all three numbers, you win $100,000. The Probability for this is 3/100.

And, If you are a customer, You will think is fair for you.

But if you are the lottery tickets company, you will think is not fair for you.

It depends who you are.

Answer 2

the game isn't fair because 100,000/3=3333 1/3, so each number should be worth $3333.3333...... dollars but you can't really give 1/3 dollars so the game is impossible to be fair. Also, if you match the first two numbers you apparently get $5000. That's also not fair because each number is worth $50 dollars more than if you get the first number matched. So, the game isn't fair but it will be pretty much impossible to be fair.