Related papers: Gambling and R\'enyi Divergence
We analyze the Gambler's problem, a simple reinforcement learning problem where the gambler has the chance to double or lose the bets until the target is reached. This is an early example introduced in the reinforcement learning textbook by…
The theory of combinatorial game (like board games) and the theory of social games (where one looks for Nash equilibria) are normally considered as two separate theories. Here we shall see what comes out of combining the ideas. The central…
This paper considers games where the utilities for agents are the sum of a term proportional to a social utility, and another term that is an individual cost or reward. The agents are assumed to be irrational in their perception of the…
We study variants of a stochastic game inspired by backgammon where players may propose to double the stake, with the game state dictated by a one-dimensional random walk. Our variants allow for different numbers of proposals and different…
This paper investigates the dynamics of gambling and how they can affect risk-taking behavior in regions not explored by Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory. Specifically, it questions why extreme outcomes do not fit the theory and…
Ergodicity describes an equivalence between the expectation value and the time average of observables. Applied to human behaviour, ergodic theories of decision-making reveal how individuals should tolerate risk in different environments. To…
We study the classic divide-and-choose method for equitably allocating divisible goods between two players who are rational, self-interested Bayesian agents. The players have additive values for the goods. The prior distributions on those…
We consider a two-player game in which the first player (the Guesser) tries to guess, edge-by-edge, the path that second player (the Chooser) takes through a directed graph. At each step, the Guesser makes a wager as to the correctness of…
We show that the Brier game of prediction is mixable and find the optimal learning rate and substitution function for it. The resulting prediction algorithm is applied to predict results of football and tennis matches. The theoretical…
Prior work has studied the computational complexity of computing optimal strategies to commit to in Stackelberg or leadership games, where a leader commits to a strategy which is observed by one or more followers. We extend this setting to…
For a sequence of binary bets, the Kelly criterion provides a closed-form solution that maximizes the expected growth rate of wealth. In contrast, when multiple bets are placed simultaneously (e.g., in portfolio allocation or prediction…
In many cases the Nash equilibria are not predictive of the experimental players' behaviour. For some games of Game Theory it is proposed here a method to estimate the probabilities with which the different options will be actually chosen…
In Major League Baseball, strategy and planning are major factors in determining the outcome of a game. Previous studies have aided this by building machine learning models for predicting the winning team of any given game. We extend this…
That there exist two losing games that can be combined, either by random mixture or by nonrandom alternation, to form a winning game is known as Parrondo's paradox. We establish a strong law of large numbers and a central limit theorem for…
In simple card games, cards are dealt one at a time and the player guesses each card sequentially. We study problems where feedback (e.g. correct/incorrect) is given after each guess. For decks with repeated values (as in blackjack where…
The allocation of resources plays an important role in the completion of system objectives and tasks, especially in the presence of strategic adversaries. Optimal allocation strategies are becoming increasingly more complex, given that…
In this paper, we study a game with positive or plus infinite expectation and determine the optimal proportion of investment for maximizing the limit expectation of growth rate per attempt. With this objective, we introduce a new pricing…
Courses on the mathematics of gambling have been offered by a number of colleges and universities, and for a number of reasons. In the past 15 years, at least seven potential textbooks for such a course have been published. In this article…
A multi-player competitive Dynkin stopping game is constructed. Each player can either exit the game for a fixed payoff, determined a priori, or stay and receive an adjusted payoff depending on the decision of other players. The single…
In online betting, the bookmaker can update the payoffs it offers on a particular event many times before the event takes place, and the updated payoffs may depend on the bets accumulated thus far. We study the problem of bookmaking with…