Greedy Desire

George is a die-hard football fan. One day, while deleting spam emails, he came across an email with the subject line: "Surprising Football Match Prediction." Curious, he opened the email, which read:

Dear football fan, we know you won't believe anything easily, but we have indeed designed a method to predict football match results with absolute accuracy. This afternoon, in the third round of the FA Cup, Coventry City will face Sheffield United, and we predict that Coventry City will win.

George scoffed at it and didn't take it seriously. However, that evening, as he watched the live broadcast of the match on TV, Coventry City indeed won as predicted.

Three weeks later, George received another email from the same person:

Dear football fan, do you remember that we accurately predicted Coventry City's victory in the previous round of the FA Cup? Today, Coventry City will play against Middlesbrough, and our prediction is that Middlesbrough will win. Please pay close attention to the match results to see if our prediction is accurate.

That afternoon, the two teams ended in a 1-1 draw. Coventry City, which was expected to be strong, did not perform well. However, in the replay held the following week, Middlesbrough won with a score of 2-0. This time, George was a bit surprised.

A few days later, the email from the person came again, predicting that Middlesbrough would lose in the fifth round and that Tranmere Rovers would defeat them. The result turned out to be true.

Before the quarter-finals, the email again told George that Tranmere Rovers would lose to Taunton Heng. Indeed, that was the case.

Four predictions, all correct!

Then, in a new email, the person told George: In fact, we have bought out a mathematician's latest research results. Now you probably believe that we are indeed very confident and can predict the future. In the semi-finals, Ipswich Town will beat Arsenal.

George is a stubborn person. He notified many friends to watch the live broadcast of the match together in the afternoon and planned to reply to the email to ridicule the person who talked nonsense after Ipswich Town lost. However, Ipswich Town caught up in the backward situation and finally won with a score of 2-1. It was incredible!

The next day, the incredible email came again, this time saying:

Dear football fan, you have experienced our magical football prediction, and now you must be convinced! We have made five correct predictions, all five were accurate, and you must agree that this is not luck, especially since we have guessed all the dark horses correctly. Now we have a special deal for you: within a month, we will predict the match results for you. You only need to pay 200 pounds and send an email, telling us the two participating teams, and we will notify you of the prediction results. We eagerly look forward to receiving your order.

The 200-pound asking price is indeed high, but if you can know in advance which team will win, you can win 200,000 pounds from the bookmakers.

Of course, George also suspected that the person who sent the email was a consortium secretly manipulating the match or the underworld, but all this has nothing to do with George, as long as the prediction is accurate. So, he took out 200 pounds.

Soon, George received the other party's prediction, and he placed a large bet on the betting company based on this prediction. But this time, the match result was completely opposite to the prediction, and George lost everything.

George couldn't figure out what was going on until the gang of scammers who sent the email was caught by the police. In fact, their method is as follows: at the beginning, they sent 8,000 emails to football fans, half predicting that Team A would win, and the other half predicting that Team B would win. As a result, about 4,000 people received the correct prediction, and the other half would treat it as a joke and forget it.

The next time, they only sent emails to the 4,000 people who received the "correct prediction," half predicting that Team C would win, and the other half predicting that Team D would win... and so on. The so-called predictors always sent new emails to the part of the people who received the "correct prediction." In the end, according to probability, about 250 people received all the correct predictions, and they naturally believed that the prediction was absolutely accurate. If 50 of them paid 200 pounds, it would be a considerable income for the planners of the scam, because they didn't need any capital other than sending emails.