Vivid Memories #3
Originally posted November 3, 2009
To try and fool the guesser, I had this brilliant idea to open my eyes up really wide and almost kinda bug them out to throw off his read. It worked; he guessed October and I was born in January. I collected my prize and walked away feeling I just totally hustled that guy.
I'm not sure what made me think of this, but when I did I laughed at my 12-year-old self's cunning plan and then thought about how the game really worked. I figured that since the guesser has a window of 3 months, he gets it right 1 out of every 4 times just by stone cold guessing, so the game must be priced such that they still profit after giving out prizes 75% of the time.
Of course, after feeling really smart about cracking the math of carnival games, I realized something. How exactly do they verify that a 12 year old kid with no ID of any kind was born in January? What was stopping me from just lying after he guessed? The carnies probably know this and price the game to cover the cost of the crappy prizes they give out and then some, and if you're ever honest and admit that they guessed right, you're just a sucker giving your money away.
It's pretty easy to feel like you have the edge when you're probably just being hustled.
When I was 11 or 12 I was at a carnival or a theme park and decided to play the booth game Fool the Guesser. In this particular version of the game, you paid a couple dollars and the guy running the booth guessed what month you were born in, and if he got it within 1 month you lost, otherwise you won a prize.
To try and fool the guesser, I had this brilliant idea to open my eyes up really wide and almost kinda bug them out to throw off his read. It worked; he guessed October and I was born in January. I collected my prize and walked away feeling I just totally hustled that guy.
I'm not sure what made me think of this, but when I did I laughed at my 12-year-old self's cunning plan and then thought about how the game really worked. I figured that since the guesser has a window of 3 months, he gets it right 1 out of every 4 times just by stone cold guessing, so the game must be priced such that they still profit after giving out prizes 75% of the time.
Of course, after feeling really smart about cracking the math of carnival games, I realized something. How exactly do they verify that a 12 year old kid with no ID of any kind was born in January? What was stopping me from just lying after he guessed? The carnies probably know this and price the game to cover the cost of the crappy prizes they give out and then some, and if you're ever honest and admit that they guessed right, you're just a sucker giving your money away.
It's pretty easy to feel like you have the edge when you're probably just being hustled.
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