When to stop rolling a ten-sided die that can bust
Question
You repeatedly roll a fair ten-sided die with faces to , deciding before each roll whether to continue. Any result from to is added to your winnings; a wipes out everything you have accumulated. Under optimal play you should stop as soon as your total reaches at least . What is ?
Short answer
. With total , one more roll keeps plus an average gain of with probability and loses all otherwise. Rolling is worth it while , so the break-even point is .
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- Counting and Combinatorics
- Expectation, Mean, and Variance
- Conditional Expectation and Variance Revisited
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