Learning the Math in Deal or No Deal
Campers are having a blast not only playing to win in Nick Skaggs’ Math in Game Shows, but also learning the math behind the games so they are able to make more educated decisions while playing. This week, campers looked at “Deal or No Deal” with comedian host Howie Mandel. Benjamin and Suma were selected to be contestants in the first afternoon session; emotions ran high with all students as the high dollar cases were crossed out. Between each deal, Skaggs would stop and discuss the math. “Let’s look at the estimated value of the remaining cases,” he said. Students would get out their calculators and shout out the value and then wait to hear what the bank offer was. “That’s too low,” called out one camper. Skaggs would agree that the actual offer was way lower than the estimated value; however, they would discuss other factors such as how many smaller numbers were left in cases that influenced the offer.
Benjamin got down to two cases with one being a million and one being ten dollars. He was committed until the end, but the million-dollar case did not go in his favor. Suma was given an offer to switch his case at the end and chose not to, ending up with 500,000 dollars. All students agreed it is easier to gamble with fake money being offered and even the contestants agreed if the money was real, they would have possibly made deals earlier.
Big Red even made a video appearance as one of the supporters for a WKU alum contestant! I think all would agree that math is everywhere in life and can be a lot of fun.