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In the classical prophet inequality, a gambler faces a sequence of items, whose values are drawn independently from known distributions. Upon the arrival of each item, its value is realized and the gambler either accepts it and the game…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-04-05 Bo Peng , Zhihao Gavin Tang

Prophet inequalities are a central object of study in optimal stopping theory. A gambler is sent values in an online fashion, sampled from an instance of independent distributions, in an adversarial, random or selected order, depending on…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-11-05 Giordano Giambartolomei , Frederik Mallmann-Trenn , Raimundo Saona

The setting of the classic prophet inequality is as follows: a gambler is shown the probability distributions of $n$ independent, non-negative random variables with finite expectations. In their indexed order, a value is drawn from each…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-12-31 Jack Wang

The classical Prophet Inequality arises from a fundamental problem in optimal-stopping theory. In this problem, a gambler sees a finite sequence of independent, non-negative random variables. If he stops the sequence at any time, he…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-01-10 Van-Anh Truong , Xinshang Wang

In this work, we study the single-choice prophet inequality problem, where a gambler faces a sequence of~$n$ online i.i.d. random variables drawn from an unknown distribution. When a variable reveals its value, the gambler needs to decide…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-08-23 Bo Li , Xiaowei Wu , Yutong Wu

In a prophet inequality problem, $n$ independent random variables are presented to a gambler one by one. The gambler decides when to stop the sequence and obtains the most recent value as reward. We evaluate a stopping rule by the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-11-16 Andrés Cristi , Bruno Ziliotto

Free order prophet inequalities bound the ratio between the expected value obtained by two parties each selecting a value from a set of independent random variables: a "prophet" who knows the value of each variable and may select the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-10-20 Makis Arsenis , Odysseas Drosis , Robert Kleinberg

In the classic prophet inequality, samples from independent random variables arrive online. A gambler that knows the distributions must decide at each point in time whether to stop and pick the current sample or to continue and lose that…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-03-13 Jose Correa , Raimundo Saona , Bruno Ziliotto

In the classical prophet inequality settings, a gambler is given a sequence of $n$ random variables $X_1, \dots, X_n$, taken from known distributions, observes their values in this (potentially adversarial) order, and select one of them,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-04-19 Sariel Har-Peled , Elfarouk Harb , Vasilis Livanos

In this paper, we introduce an over-time variant of the well-known prophet inequality with i.i.d. random variables. Instead of stopping with one realized value at some point in the process, we decide for each step how long we select the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-09-08 Andreas Abels , Elias Pitschmann , Daniel Schmand

We introduce a model of competing agents in a prophet setting, where rewards arrive online, and decisions are made immediately and irrevocably. The rewards are unknown from the outset, but they are drawn from a known probability…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-07-02 Tomer Ezra , Michal Feldman , Ron Kupfer

Consider a gambler who observes a sequence of independent, non-negative random numbers and is allowed to stop the sequence at any time, claiming a reward equal to the most recent observation. The famous prophet inequality of Krengel,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2012-01-24 Robert Kleinberg , S. Matthew Weinberg

In the classical prophet inequality, a gambler observes a sequence of stochastic rewards $V_1,...,V_n$ and must decide, for each reward $V_i$, whether to keep it and stop the game or to forfeit the reward forever and reveal the next value…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2013-07-16 Pablo D. Azar , Robert Kleinberg , S. Matthew Weinberg

A prophet inequality states, for some $\alpha\in[0,1]$, that the expected value achievable by a gambler who sequentially observes random variables $X_1,\dots,X_n$ and selects one of them is at least an $\alpha$ fraction of the maximum value…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-11-24 José Correa , Paul Dütting , Felix Fischer , Kevin Schewior , Bruno Ziliotto

We study a variant of the single-choice prophet inequality problem where the decision-maker does not know the underlying distribution and has only access to a set of samples from the distributions. Rubinstein et al. [2020] showed that the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-09-04 Tomer Ezra

We explore a prophet inequality problem, where the values of a sequence of items are drawn i.i.d. from some distribution, and an online decision maker must select one item irrevocably. We establish that $\mathrm{CR}_{\ell}$ the worst-case…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-01-13 Mathieu Molina , Nicolas Gast , Patrick Loiseau , Vianney Perchet

In modern sample-driven Prophet Inequality, an adversary chooses a sequence of $n$ items with values $v_1, v_2, \ldots, v_n$ to be presented to a decision maker (DM). The process follows in two phases. In the first phase (sampling phase),…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-09-30 Krishnendu Chatterjee , Mona Mohammadi , Raimundo Saona

In a classical online decision problem, a decision-maker who is trying to maximize her value inspects a sequence of arriving items to learn their values (drawn from known distributions), and decides when to stop the process by taking the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-05-26 Nicole Immorlica , Sahil Singla , Bo Waggoner

Prophet inequalities compare online stopping strategies against an omniscient "prophet" using distributional knowledge. In this work, we augment this model with a conservative prediction of the maximum realized value. We quantify the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-20 Johannes Brüstle , Ilan Reuven Cohen , Stefano Leonardi

In this work we initiate the study of buy-and-sell prophet inequalities. We start by considering what is arguably the most fundamental setting. In this setting the online algorithm observes a sequence of prices one after the other. At each…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2023-05-26 José Correa , Andrés Cristi , Paul Dütting , Mohammad Hajiaghayi , Jan Olkowski , Kevin Schewior
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