HERES ONE FOR YOU

3 guys go to a hotel and they get a room that they think costs 30 dollars so they each pay 10. turns out the room only costs 25 so the guy at the desk sends 5 with the bellboy
and the bellboy gives each guy a dollar thats 3 dollars and he is left with 2
if each guy got a dollar back that means they each paid 9 for the room 3 times 9 = 27

 27 plus the 2 that the bellboy has =29
 where the hell is the extra dollar

There is no missing dollar. The men paid 27 dollars. The front desk has 25 dollars. The bellboy has 2 dollars. 25 + 2 = 27.

:rolleyes:

The hotel has $25.
The bellboy has $2.
The 3 guys each have $1.

25 + 2 + (3*1) = 30

Duh.

What a strange coincidence…I got in a huge argument with a guy at work (my manager, actually) over this about 2 days ago. I concluded the error comes from assuming the guys paid $9 because they were given $1 back. This is true from the guys’ point of view, I argued, but not in fact. So, the guys are wrong in thinking “Alright, we paid $9 instead of $10!” but we can’t blame them because the bellboy was dishonest. They actually paid $9.33, but they don’t know it. (In the version I heard, the bellboy just took the money for himself, he didn’t return it to the desk.)

Also three times nine dollars is twenty-seven. Plus the three dollars they got back equals the thirty dollars they originally paid. The two dollars the bellboy kept is part of the twenty-seven dollars they paid and cannot be added to it again.

I’m very very sorry you have to work for someone like this. :wink:

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the guys each paid $9.

But the guy kept $2 they were paying for. If the bellhop brought it back to the manager, then they’d have paid $9 each (for the room, not total). Maybe my math’s wrong, I’m kinda tired. But I think it made sense when I first thought of it (which was in like 10 seconds, so maybe I’m just dead wrong, too). Summary: forget I ever posted to this thread. :slight_smile:

Your math isn’t wrong, you just set the problem up wrong. The front desk wound up with $25 from them, and the bellboy wound up with $2. $25 + $2 = $27. $27 / 3 = $9.

Oh yeah, the way my manager phrased it was: “How much did they pay for the room?” Everyone said “$9” and he said “But 9*3+2=29, where’s the other dollar?” and I said “Well, they didn’t pay $9 for the room, they paid $9.33!” and insanity ensued.

Isn’t this a repeat? I remember we’ve had this before . . .

I have no link. And getting a big fat guy to bonk me on the head will not make me any more likely to give you a link.

The way the problem is stated they each handed over ten dollars from their wallets. They each put one dollar back later. Think of it in a purely physical way if that helps; exactly how many actual dollars have they each paid? 9. Point of view has nothing to do with it, and there's no .33 anywhere. Even if there were an extra $.33 from each guest “given” to the bellboy, that only brings their payments up to $28, not 29. So even if you were right, there'd still be a missing dollar! They'd have to be contributing .66 if this were the source of the bellhop’s cut, which it isn’t.

The $2 of the bellboy, as DrF said, came OUT OF what the men paid, it is part of their $27 tab. There is no justification for adding it again to get the puzzling sum of $29. Two of the $27 is with the bellhop and twenty-five is with the management, as per Punoqllads’ post.

iampunha

It may be a repeat. But the question was answered in the first two posts (which were simulposts BTW). So why people are still posting answers when the question has been answered multiple times is a mystery.