{"id":4775,"date":"2026-02-28T14:09:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T19:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/?p=4775"},"modified":"2026-02-28T14:09:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T19:09:32","slug":"smart-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/2026\/02\/28\/smart-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Jims\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-4772\" src=\"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Smart-Money-Fig2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Smart-Money-Fig2.jpg 402w, https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Smart-Money-Fig2-293x300.jpg 293w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>This is a simple <a href=\"https:\/\/www.futilitycloset.com\/2024\/10\/04\/smart-money\/\">puzzle<\/a> from Futility Closet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Jims\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\u201cMr. Smith goes to Atlantic City to gamble for a weekend. To guard against bad luck, he sets a policy at the start: In every game he plays, he\u2019ll bet exactly half the money he has at the time, and he\u2019ll make all his bets at even odds, so he\u2019ll have an equal chance of winning and of losing this amount. In the end he wins the same number of games that he loses. Does he break even?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Jims\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Smart-Money-Answer.jpg\">Answer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Jims\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">See <a href=\"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Smart-Money-260227.pdf\">Smart Money<\/a> for solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a simple puzzle from Futility Closet. \u201cMr. Smith goes to Atlantic City to gamble for a weekend. To guard against bad luck, he sets a policy at the start: In every game he plays, he\u2019ll bet exactly half the money he has at the time, and he\u2019ll make all his bets at even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[133,16],"class_list":["post-4775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-puzzles-and-problems","tag-algebra","tag-futility-closet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4776,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775\/revisions\/4776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}