Later, the manager realizes the room only costs $25 and sends the night clerk back with $5.
The clerk can’t split $5 three ways, so he gives each friend $1 and quietly keeps $2.
Now each friend has paid $9, for a total of $27. The clerk has $2. That makes $29.
Where is the missing dollar?
💡 Hint
The $2 the clerk kept is already included inside the $27.
Reveal answer
No dollar is missing. Adding $27 and $2 is the mistake.
The friends paid $27 in total. Of that $27, $25 is in the motel’s cash register and $2 is in the clerk’s pocket. So the $2 is part of the $27, and adding it again counts it twice. The correct way to account for the original $30: $25 (motel) + $2 (clerk) + $3 (returned to the friends) = $30. Or, from the friends’ side: $27 paid − $2 kept by the clerk = $25 room price. The puzzle sounds convincing because it adds a payment and a part of that payment as if they were separate amounts.
Did you get it?
About This Puzzle
Three friends on a Route 66 road trip stop at a roadside motel. By the end of the night, the math seems to show a dollar has disappeared into thin air. Your job is to find it.
How to Think About It
Don’t try to find the dollar. Instead, follow the money. Write down where every single dollar of the original $30 ends up. Then look carefully at the step where $27 and $2 are added together, and ask whether those two numbers belong on the same side of the ledger.
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