3 sailors get a hotel room for the night while their ship is being unloaded, the manager tells them it's $30.00 a night, so the 3 sailors gives the manager $10,00 each (totaling the $30.00). Half an hour later the manager realizes he overcharged the sailors, calls over the bellhop, hands him $5.00 and tells him to take it up to the sailors with an explanation, half way up the stairs, the bellhop figures that since he received no tip, he pockets $2.00 and hands each of the sailors $1.00. That means each sailor paid
$9.00 each for the room. Now, each sailor paid $9.00, the bellhop kept $2.00 totaling $29.00, where's the other dollar ?

Hello - welcome to mingle. This is a famous very old riddle. It can be found along with the answer on the internet. As many times As I've read the answer over the years, I have never truly understood the answer. But then, it's a problem for me to balance my checkbook.

First of all: The bellhop stole $2 (he decided to take it upon himself to tip himself because he wasn't originally tipped.) There is no extra dollar.
Secondly, each sailor really only paid $8.33 (repeating, of course) for the room, since the manager of the hotel refunded them $5, making the room $25 in actuality. This is how you figure that out:
Original $30 paid ($10 each, x3) minus the $5 refund equals $25. So, in reality, $25 / 3 (sailors) = $8.3333 repeating is how much each sailor actually paid for the room.
Now, from the perspective of the sailors, they *think* they only paid $9 each (having received only $1 back) they *think* that their room cost, in total, $27. It does not. It actually cost $25.
The story teller here is taking the perspective of the sailors. Keep in mind the sailors don't know about the extra $2 kept because the bellhop likely did not tell them.
The reality is that the bellhop stole $2 from the $5 refund. He needs to give that back to the 3 sailors, divided evenly, that's $0.66 (repeating). Thus, each sailor actually should have received $1.66 back as a refund. (ok, someone gets an extra penny)
There is no extra dollar. ($1.66x2)+1.67 = $5, $5+25 = $30.

I never could figure out this riddle before so thank you bluegrass.

The three sailors paid nine dollars each; 27 bucks total.

The room cost twenty-five.

The evil bell hop kept two.

Give the lovely lady a gold cigar..nicely done ;)