Question

Yolanda watches a carnival game in which a paper cup is tossed. It costs $1 to play the game. If the cup lands upright, the player receives $5. Otherwise, the player receives nothing. The cup is tossed 50 times. It lands on its side 32 times, upside-down 13 times, and upright 5 times.

A). If Yolanda plays the game ten times, about how many times can she expect to win? How many times can she expect to lose?

B). Do you expect her to have more or less money at the end of ten games? Explain.

Answer 1

Explanation:

.

a. Yolanda only wins if the cup lands upright.

From the experimental data we see that the probability of winning is 5 out of 50, or

10%. Therefore, if Yolanda plays 10 times she can expect to win 10% of 10 times = 1

time. She will lose 9 times. (Note: Ten trials is a very small number of trials, so we should not be surprised if Yolanda’s results are very different from the percentages

produced by the longer experiment.)

b. If Yolanda wins 1 time and plays 10 times, she will have spent $10 to play and won

back only $5, so she would have less money at the end of 10 games.