# Clarification on the intended meaning of a probability problem [closed]

I am just wondering if anyone can help with this question:

A radio station held a competition where contestants were invited to pick a number from $1$ to $50$. If a contestant picked the ‘winning’ number they won a trip to Vegas. The station picked a new ‘winning’ number at random each time a new contestant played the game. The radio station allowed ﬁve contestants to play every day over the course of one week.

1. Compute the probability that the station will have to pay out for exactly one Vegas trip.

I know that there will be 35 people in total who will guess the number but can the 'winning' number be reused or is it without replacement?

• Well, that would be really a question for the radio station. – lulu Nov 26 '15 at 11:16
• Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to ask them in an exam. Thanks for your input though! – luke mcneil Nov 26 '15 at 11:34
• I'm afraid this question doesn't have a correct answer. We could provide an answer for probability with or without replacement, but which interpretation is the correct one is beyond anyone except the presenter of the question. – kviiri Nov 26 '15 at 12:23
• @lukemcneil as kviiri pointed out, the current question does not have an answer. But perhaps you could edit the question to ask what you should do if you came across a exam question with multiple possible interpretations, as that seems to be what you really want to know. – Marc Paul Nov 26 '15 at 14:15

• If it were without replacement it would not make sense to assign a new winning number after each try. This makes sense in a scenario with replacement so that each contestant still has a $1$ in $50$ chance of winning, as earlier attempts do not "eliminate" a number.