Your favorite baseball team is playing against your uncle's favorite team in theWorld Series. At the beginning of each game, you and your uncle bet on the game's outcome.Your uncle, being wealthy and carefree, always lets you choose the amount of the bet. Ifyou bet b dollars and your team wins the game, your uncle gives you an IOU for b dollars.But if they lose the game, you give him an IOU for b dollars. When the series is over, alloutstanding IOUs are settled in cash. You would like to walk away with $100 in cash if yourteam wins the series, and lose $100 if your team loses the series. How much should you beton the opening game? (For non{baseball fans, the rst team to win a total of four gameswins the series).

I guess the last sentence should be "the first team to win..."

This is in Brainteasers somewhere ... draw a binomial tree to derive several state-contingent bets (bet $31.25 on first two games, then $25 on game 3 if the series is 0-2 or 2-0, else bet $37.50, etc.)This is a good interview q because it's simple enough to reason out but the answer is too detailed to remember.

QuoteOriginally posted by: flower2222... You would like to walk away with $100 in cash if your team wins the series, and lose $100 if your team loses the series. How much should you bet on the opening game? If betting $0 constitutes a bet, I don't see why you can't bet $100 on the opening game and bet $0 on all the subsequent ones. This would satisfy the statement quoted above.

QuoteOriginally posted by: rcohenQuoteOriginally posted by: flower2222... You would like to walk away with $100 in cash if your team wins the series, and lose $100 if your team loses the series. How much should you bet on the opening game? If betting $0 constitutes a bet, I don't see why you can't bet $100 on the opening game and bet $0 on all the subsequent ones. This would satisfy the statement quoted above.But it won't ensure walking away with 100 when your team wins the series and lose 100 when lost.

It does belong in the brainteasers forum however

Define IOU as not everybody knows baseball terminology