Friday Brain Teaser - Missing Dollar

Three men checked into a hotel for the night. They asked to share a room (don’t get any ideas - this is clean!). The receptionist charged them a total of $30 for the room so they put in $10 each and went up to the room. A little later the receptionist realised she had overcharged the men by $5. The charge for the room should have been $25. She gave $5 to the porter and asked him to give it back to the men. He couldn’t work out how to split the $5 evenly between the three so he gave them $1 each and kept $2 for himself.

Now here’s the problem. Having received back $1 each the men have paid out $9 each for the room (3 x $9 = $27); the porter has $2 so this is a total of $29.

What happened to the other dollar?

There's a hole in your logic.
3x10=30
30-5=25
3x9=27
27-2=25
the other dollar is actually the three dollars that the men got back.

It took me a while to figure that out.

It did me too. They paid $25 for the room, each have a dollar (so now we're up to $28) and the porter guy has $2, making $30. But it ticked around in my head for ages.

Huh? I don't get your explanation. Why not try it this way:
Price for the room is now $25 plus $2 for the porter is $27. That's what they paid. $30 minus $27 is $3 and that's what they got back. Nothing is missing here. []

Cheers

Peter

love those ones using numbers

Actually the original logic was correct the the missing dollar actually went to the Govt when the GST was raised from 12.5 to 15% however it was offset by an reduction in tax to the Porter whose mimimum wage was being subsidised by family tax credit despite the fact he was pocketing a significant non taxable income from overcharging guests.

kindajojo;337528 wrote: Actually the original logic was correct the the missing dollar actually went to the Govt when the GST was raised from 12.5 to 15% however it was offset by an reduction in tax to the Porter whose mimimum wage was being subsidised by family tax credit despite the fact he was pocketing a significant non taxable income from overcharging guests.

Brilliant!

Cheers

Peter

Kindajojo - I was waiting for somebody to come up with something like that! Very good!

I think you will find there is an undisclosed checking out fee of $30 each so they will all be grumpy on the trip home and never meet again

three guys overnight, in a single room, and clean... sounds like an overnighter poker game... Who cares about $1, at least one of them's going to end up skint

On yah kiwi!