Economics Contest 8: Pick-a-Door – 30 Hive Power to be won

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the eighth Economics Contest for 2023. This month is the Pick-a-Door Contest. The Pick-a-Door Contest might be familiar to some of you. It was part of both the 2022 and 2023 Economics Challenge Series. Below are the challenge posts and results posts for these challenges. You may want to refer to them to get a better idea of how this contest is played. The results posts also contain some tips.

• Economics 7 Week Challenge Series 2022 – Challenge 7: Pick-a-Door
• Economics 7 Week Challenge Series – Challenge 7: Pick-a-door and Challenge Series Results
• Challenge 2: Pick-a-Door
• Economics Challenge Series – Challenge 2: Pick-a-Door Results

Welcome to the Pick-a-Door Contest

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How to Play?

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In this contest, participants are required to make decisions based on expected payoff and risk. Participants are presented with 12 doors. Behind each door there could be a prize (expressed in dollars). Each door has a possible prize worth a different amount. As the value increases the probability of the prize being behind the door decreases. For example, Door 3 might have an 80% chance of a prize worth $40 and Door 9 might have a 22% chance of a prize worth $160. If the prize is not there, the participant will receive a value of zero.

Opening a door incurs a cost. Each participant is given a budget of $40. Therefore, each participant can only open as many doors as their budget permits. Participants are not compelled to use all of the budget. If a participant opens 2 or more doors that have zero value behind them, they are eliminated from the contest. If not eliminated, the winner is the participant with the highest total value expressed in dollars (i.e. combined value of prizes minus cost of opening doors).

All entries must be made in the comments section of this post.

Each account is only permitted one entry.

Objectives of the game

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The objective of the game is to obtain the highest prize value minus costs without opening more than one door that has a value of zero. The participant who can do this will be the winner.

Game Assumptions

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• The value revealed behind each door is what each participant who selected that door wins. There is no sharing of prizes in this contest.
• All doors cost the same amount to open ($10 for this contest). Not opening a door has a zero cost.
• If it is revealed the door does not have a prize behind it, the value is zero and the fee required to open the door is lost.
• Based on the budget allocated and the cost of opening each door, each participant can only open a maximum of 4 doors. However, the participant may choose to open less.
• If a participant opens more than one door that does not have a prize, he or she is eliminated from the contest regardless of the value accumulated from the doors that have prizes behind them.
• The order that the doors are opened does not affect the probability of a prize being behind it.

What information is provided?

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• All possible prize values behind each door are provided.
• All probabilities that these prizes will eventuate are provided.
• Cost of opening doors is provided.

How are the results of the game determined?

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A Microsoft Excel Model is used to determine if the prizes are behind the doors. The model will calculate each participant’s winnings as well as determine the overall winner. The results post will contain a video of the model generating all relevant values. The winner will be announced in both the video and the written post.

Contest Prizes

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The account with the winning entry will receive 30 Hive Power and the first 12 entries will be given upvotes. If two or more participants are tied, the first participant to enter wins. If no participants obtain a positive value from their choices, the 30 Hive Power will be rolled over to next month’s contest.

Let the contest begin!

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Participants can choose to open up to 4 of 12 doors for a chance to win prizes valued in dollars. Figure 1 contains the twelve doors, the value of the prizes that might be behind them, and the probability this will occur.

Figure 1: Value of prizes and probability

The cost of opening each and any door is $10. The fee is deducted from the value won to determine the overall value gained

Entry format

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For this contest, I expect to see entries made in the following format:

Doors Opened:
Door: W
Door: X
Door: Y
Door: Z

Example of entry

Doors Opened:
Door 5
Door 8
Door 9
Door 11

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The closing date and time for this contest is 6PM coordinated universal time (UTC) 31/10/2023. Responses after this time will not be accepted. The winners will be announced in the results post along with the video containing the generation of values for each item.

I hope everyone has fun and enjoys this contest. I look forward to your participation in next month’s contest.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section.

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More posts

I have several collection of posts. I have organised these collections based on content and purpose.

The first collection contains six collection posts created before PeakD had the collection feature. Four of these posts relate to the core of my content, one of them contains all my Actifit Posts, and one of them contains my video course ‘Economics is Everyone’.

The second collection consists of the posts that I consider define my channel. These posts are significant in terms of content as well as how they contribute to the growth of the channel. These posts reveal the most about what I believe in.

The third and fourth collection is what I call my ‘Freedom-base Economics living book’. They contain all the posts that support my ideas about the value and power of freedom. Some of these posts explain what we can achieve with freedom and what we need to utilise it. Some of them explain how we are deprived of freedom and how we often give up freedom for security and comfort. The third collection concludes with possible scenarios depending on what we (society) choose to do.

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