WWTBAM Bored

A while ago I said I might look at the first few weeks of contestants because it seemed to me that the big money amounts were coming up early in the stacks, perhaps more often than randomness would suggest. Now I realize this is a small sample and true randomness means the possibility of, say, the $25K amount coming up on the 1st question 10 times in a row. But still...

So here's what I found.

Out of 32 contestants, the dollar value of the 1st question was $10K, $15K or $25K 11 times
The dollar value of the 2nd question was $10K, $15K or $25K 9 times
The third question's value was $10K, $15K or $25K 8 times

I'm not sure this means anything but I thought it was interesting.

earendel wrote:A while ago I said I might look at the first few weeks of contestants because it seemed to me that the big money amounts were coming up early in the stacks, perhaps more often than randomness would suggest. Now I realize this is a small sample and true randomness means the possibility of, say, the $25K amount coming up on the 1st question 10 times in a row. But still...

So here's what I found.

Out of 32 contestants, the dollar value of the 1st question was $10K, $15K or $25K 11 times
The dollar value of the 2nd question was $10K, $15K or $25K 9 times
The third question's value was $10K, $15K or $25K 8 times

I'm not sure this means anything but I thought it was interesting.

That is random.

Bob Juch wrote:

earendel wrote:A while ago I said I might look at the first few weeks of contestants because it seemed to me that the big money amounts were coming up early in the stacks, perhaps more often than randomness would suggest. Now I realize this is a small sample and true randomness means the possibility of, say, the $25K amount coming up on the 1st question 10 times in a row. But still...

So here's what I found.

Out of 32 contestants, the dollar value of the 1st question was $10K, $15K or $25K 11 times
The dollar value of the 2nd question was $10K, $15K or $25K 9 times
The third question's value was $10K, $15K or $25K 8 times

I'm not sure this means anything but I thought it was interesting.

That is random.

Like I said, it's a small sample and absolute randomness means that one dollar amount could come up 10 or more times in a row for the same question. And, just to add to the mix, this doesn't account for every contestant (some transcripts aren't available) and a few never saw any of the big money amounts. But I can't help but wonder if the big money amounts are coming up early in order to build interest. If I were a statistician I would go back and look at the first few weeks of Cedric's run to see if the same type of thing happened then, and even go back to Meredith's first couple weeks.

earendel wrote:A while ago I said I might look at the first few weeks of contestants because it seemed to me that the big money amounts were coming up early in the stacks, perhaps more often than randomness would suggest. Now I realize this is a small sample and true randomness means the possibility of, say, the $25K amount coming up on the 1st question 10 times in a row. But still...

So here's what I found.

Out of 32 contestants, the dollar value of the 1st question was $10K, $15K or $25K 11 times
The dollar value of the 2nd question was $10K, $15K or $25K 9 times
The third question's value was $10K, $15K or $25K 8 times

I'm not sure this means anything but I thought it was interesting.

I don't understand your reason for suspecting it might not be random. There are 10 different dollar values in the first round, right? So if it's random then there's a 30% chance that one of the top three will be the first question (same for the 2nd or 3rd question). Out of 32 contestants, that would be 9.6 on average, and the results were 11, 9, and 8. Of course you can't ever prove any process is random based solely on its output, but I don't see any reason to think it doesn't at least simulate a random process based on your data.