Missing Dollar Puzzle

Solve the Missing Dollar Puzzle

Three guests check into a hotel. The manager says the bill is 300 dollars, so each of the guests pays 100 dollars, takes their key, and leaves. Later that night the manager realizes that he should have charged them 250 dollars instead of 300 dollars. He calls a bell boy and gives him 50 dollars, to return to the guests. On his way up, the bellboy realizes there is no way for him to equally distribute the 50 dollars in 3 parts. Since he was a bit dishonest himself, he decides to keep 20 dollars for himself and gives back the guests 10 dollars each. As the guests got 10 dollars back, each guest had paid 90 dollars, bringing the total to 270 dollars and the bellboy had kept 20 dollars for himself. Adding the amount it totals 290 dollars, then what happened to the remaining 10 dollars?

missing dollar puzzle

There are no missing 10 dollars here.

In the second half of the question, unrelated amounts are added together making it seem like all the amounts should add up to 300 when that is not the case.

  • According to the riddle, sum = 3*90( paid by the 3 guests) + 20(bellboy’s money).

But we cannot add the bellboy’s money with that of the guests. Because the 270 the guest paid also includes the bellboy’s 20 rupees. 

The calculation here is not for the whole 300, but rather the 50 rupees in balance, from where the guests each got 10 and the bellboy got 30.

We can express it like this, mathematically:-

  •  300 = 250(hotel gets) + 10*3(the 3 guests get)+ 20(bellboy gets)

Totaling this we get 300.

Prime Course Trailer

Related Banners

Get PrepInsta Prime & get Access to all 200+ courses offered by PrepInsta in One Subscription

Get over 200+ course One Subscription

Courses like AI/ML, Cloud Computing, Ethical Hacking, C, C++, Java, Python, DSA (All Languages), Competitive Coding (All Languages), TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Amazon, DBMS, SQL and others

Checkout list of all the video courses in PrepInsta Prime Subscription

Checkout list of all the video courses in PrepInsta Prime Subscription