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Yeah like, even if he somehow owned 10% of all dollar bills in existence and had a somewhat efficient way of looking them up, his expected value is still only $3,000! Does it really make sense to do all the work of taking your hard-earned, once in a lifetime windfall of $100000 (easily 4x the median annual income at the time, even for a person who had a steady professional job), out of the literal bank where it safely sits making ~10% interest in the mid 80s, and store it in your messy house in drawers and trash bags, for the opportunity to make 3% back? Not the thoughts of a rational person!


You mean the E[V] is 103,000. He still gets to keep the 100,000 he withdrew and re-deposit it.


I wouldn't consider the original 100K to be part of the expected value since that's money they already have, not money they're winning...


He should have just put it in a savings account and looked for something else.




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