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Optional cash-out in a roll-until-5-or-6 game

Question

You roll a fair die repeatedly, adding up the results of 11–44. Rolling a 55 ends the game and pays you the accumulated total (the 55 itself is not added); rolling a 66 ends the game with nothing. Before any roll you may also choose to stop and take your current total. With optimal play, what is the expected payout, to the nearest hundredth?

Short answer

About 3.033.03. With bank kk, another roll is worth 16k+23(k+52)\tfrac16k+\tfrac23\left(k+\tfrac52\right), which beats kk only when k<10k<10, so stop once the total reaches 1010. Evaluating the game value backwards from the stopping totals 1010–1313 down to 00 gives about 3.033.03.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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