Switching doors after a random goat reveal
Question
On a game show there are three doors: one hides a car and two hide goats. You choose door . Then an audience member, who has no idea where the car is, opens door at random and it happens to show a goat. You may now stick with door or switch to door . What is the probability of winning the car if you switch?
Short answer
. Unlike the classic Monty Hall setup, the reveal is not guaranteed to show a goat. Conditioning on the random door 3 showing a goat simply rules out "car behind 3", leaving doors 1 and 2 equally likely, so switching wins with probability .
Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
- Worked Examples — Probability Trees, Monty Hall, and Bayesian Updating
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
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