Elevens and Twelves
Monday, June 6th, 2016Casino manager Mango is worried about the new dice game “Elevens and Twelves” he invented, as the casino is losing money on it at a rate of about 1%. He fears that casino owner Don Corleone will certainly not be very happy about this.
The game is based on throwing three dice and getting 11 or 12 as a result. The casino pays even money to the player on throws of 11 and the player loses on throws of 12.
Players throw the three dice until they get an 11 or a 12. Then they can make another bet and repeat the process.
Mango had studied probability theory, made some calculations and concluded that the casino would make a profit of about 1% on this game, but, alas, it has not been working out that way.
How did Mango mess this up?