PROJECT EULER · #0444
The Roundtable Lottery
A group of
An arbitrary person is chosen to be the first player. Going around the table, each player has only one of two options:
- The player can choose to scratch the ticket and reveal its worth to everyone at the table.
- If the player's ticket is unscratched, then the player may trade it with a previous player's scratched ticket, and then leaves the game with that ticket. The previous player then scratches the newly-acquired ticket and reveals its worth to everyone at the table.
The game ends once all tickets have been scratched. All players still remaining at the table must leave with their currently-held tickets.
Assume that players will use the optimal strategy for maximizing the expected value of their ticket winnings.
Let
E.g.
Let
Let
Find
Write-up coming later
The complete problem is available here. An approach, code, and answer will be added later.