Three friends check into a motel for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30, payable in advance. So, they each pay the clerk $10 and go to their room. A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made an error and overcharged the trio by $5. He asks the bellhop to return $5 to the 3 friends who had just checked in. The bellhop sees this as an opportunity to make $2 as he reasons that the three friends would have a tough time dividing $5 evenly among them; so he decides to tell them that the clerk made a mistake of only $3, giving a dollar back to each of the friends. He pockets the leftover $2 and goes home for the day! Now, each of the three friends gets a dollar back, thus they each paid $9 for the room which is a total of $27 for the night. We know the bellhop pocketed $2 and adding that to the $27, you get $29, not $30 which was originally spent. Where did the other dollar go????

There is no missing dollar.

The bell boy brings back $5 dollars to the room (30 - 5 = 25).

He gives $1 back to each man (1 x 3 = 3)

(25 + 3 = 28)

Out of the $5, there is $2 left, which the bell boy takes for himself.

(28 + 2 = 30)

Edited at 01:10 Fri 21/01/11 (GMT)

well done most people get caught out with that 1..

Thanks. My Grandad used to tell me that riddle when I was younger. The answer has just always stuck in my mind