Here’s one interesting way of viewing it that I once read:
Suppose that the option you chose, rather than being a single trial, were actually 1,000 trials. Then, risk averse or not, Option 5 is clearly the best approach. The only difficulty, then, is that we’re considering a single trial in isolation. However, when you consider all such risks you might encounter in a long period of time (e.g. your life), then the situation becomes much closer to the 1,000 trial case, and so you should always take the highest expected value option (unless the amounts involved are absolutely huge, as others have pointed out).
Here’s one interesting way of viewing it that I once read:
Suppose that the option you chose, rather than being a single trial, were actually 1,000 trials. Then, risk averse or not, Option 5 is clearly the best approach. The only difficulty, then, is that we’re considering a single trial in isolation. However, when you consider all such risks you might encounter in a long period of time (e.g. your life), then the situation becomes much closer to the 1,000 trial case, and so you should always take the highest expected value option (unless the amounts involved are absolutely huge, as others have pointed out).