twenty-six cases

How it plays

1Twenty-six sealed cases. One holds a penny, one holds a million.
2Choose your case first. It stays shut until the very end.
3Open the others a few at a time. Every one you open is a number that is not in yours.
4Then the banker calls, and somebody has to say a word out loud.

What it is actually for: the offer is always below the average of what is left, and the screen shows you that average the whole time. Taking it anyway is not a mistake — it is a real preference about risk, and the point is getting a room to say out loud which one it has. The debrief compares what was taken against what was in the case and against every offer that was refused.

Set up

Best with the room voting on every decision. One person deciding is a game; a room deciding is an argument worth having.

choose yours
First decision

Pick the case you are keeping.

It does not get opened until everything else has been. There is no clever way to choose it.

round 1

 

still unknown 26 average of those — biggest still out —
Your case
—

Still sealed.

the last decision
Two cases left

Keep the one you picked, or take the other?

You chose yours before you knew anything. There is no information in that choice — and none in this one either.

the one you picked
 
the one left standing
 
what it was worth