Question

At a raffle, 1500 tickets are sold for $2 each for four prizes of $500, $250, $150, and $75. You buy one ticket. What is the expected value of your gain?

Answer 1

To find the expected value of your gain in each prize, subtract the price of the ticket from the prize:

If the prize is $500: $500 - $2 = $498
If the prize is $250:  $250 - $2 = 248
If the prize is $160: $160 - $2 = $73

But if you did not win any cash prize, you do not have any gain because
0 cash prize - $2 ticket = -$2 which is a loss