Many explanations here contain the same mistake: Some reasoning -->> seeing the money doesn't change anything and/or doesn't count as information. If you arriv

Many explanations here contain the same mistake: Some reasoning -->> seeing the money doesn't change anything and/or doesn't count as information. If you arrive at this point you've made a mistake. Seeing the money is valuable information. The trick is not in ignoring it but making good use of it like this: -use your best knowledge about person who puts money in the envelope, general human tendencies and how the world is to approximate distribution of money in the envelopes -pick according to your personal utility of money assuming the distribution What the the wrong reasoning in original puzzle suggests is to assume uniform distribution which is impossible but more importantly baseless. As other poster shows there are baseless distributions you could assume which leads you nowhere as well. Just don't let it detract from the main point: there is new information but making use of it is not that easy.