3 men paid $10 each for a $30 room at a motel.
Later that night the manager came in and said no, that room is only $25 not $30 and told the Bell-hop to give them back $5. The Bell-hop thought 3 into $5 won't go, so I'll pocket $2 and give them $1 each. Each man has therefore paid $9 each for the room.

The Bell-hop pocketed $2 and each man has been given $1 back thereby paying $9 each. 3x$9 = $27 + the $2 the Bell-hop pocketed. What happened to the missing $1 from the original $30 ?

I'll have a go:

25/3 = 8.33333 +1 = 9.33333*3 = 28 +2 = 30

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I like Bing Lee.

That doesn't explain what happened to the missing dollar in real terms.
Who was given what and who got the extra dollar? There where no cents handed out, only dollars changed hands as originally described.

56 views and no correct answer. No wonder 95% of punters lose :-)

Briefly:

The correct formula is:

27 - 2 = 25


That is the hop pocketed $2 from the $27 paid for the room. Leaving the manager with $25.


27 + 2 is inappropriate

That would describe the situation where instead of pocketing $2, the hop curiously donated another $2 on top of that paid to the manager.

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For the record I did work that out from scratch, even though I had a vague recollection of where to find the answer on the Internet.

Well done JFC.

The answer only required a bit of solid reasoning. Interestingly, apparently 70% more women than men work out the answer to that riddle. Probably because they do far more small money transactions than men [?]

This riddle has the same reasoning and effect as the 11 fingers scenario where you count backwards your 5 fingers on your left hand 10,9,8,7,6... and then add your 5 fingers on your right hand to say you have 6+5=11 fingers. Not mathematically viable but it looks good.