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We consider a randomized algorithm for the unique games problem, using independent multinomial probabilities to assign labels to the vertices of a graph. The expected value of the solution obtained by the algorithm is expressed as a…
Multi-round competitions often double or triple the points awarded in the final round, calling it a bonus, to maximize spectators' excitement. In a two-player competition with $n$ rounds, we aim to derive the optimal bonus size to maximize…
Chances of a gambler are always lower than chances of a casino in the case of an ideal, mathematically perfect roulette, if the capital of the gambler is limited and the minimum and maximum allowed bets are limited by the casino. However, a…
In "Recognizing the Maximum of a Sequence", Gilbert and Mosteller analyze a full information game where n measurements from an uniform distribution are drawn and a player (knowing n) must decide at each draw whether or not to choose that…
The multiplication game is a two-person game in which each player chooses a positive integer without knowledge of the other player's number. The two numbers are then multiplied together and the first digit of the product determines the…
The paper proposes a natural measure space of zero-sum perfect information games with upper semicontinuous payoffs. Each game is specified by the game tree, and by the assignment of the active player and of the capacity to each node of the…
We construct irreducible balanced non-transitive sets of $n$-sided dice for any positive integer $n$, which was raised in \cite[Question 5.2]{SS17}. One main tool of the construction is to study so-called fair sets of dice. Furthermore, we…
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…
Randomized mechanisms, which map a set of bids to a probability distribution over outcomes rather than a single outcome, are an important but ill-understood area of computational mechanism design. We investigate the role of randomized…
Suppose a gambler starts with a fortune in (0,1) and wishes to attain a fortune of 1 by making a sequence of bets. Assume thay whenever the gambler stakes the amount s, the gambler's fortune increases by s with probability w and decreases…
In a combinatorial exchange setting, players place sell (resp. buy) bids on combinations of traded goods. Besides the question of finding an optimal selection of winning bids, the question of how to share the obtained profit is of high…
Guessing games for directed graphs were introduced by Riis for studying multiple unicast network coding problems. In a guessing game, the players toss generalised dice and can see some of the other outcomes depending on the structure of an…
Two possibly unfair $n$-sided dice, both labelled $1, 2, \ldots, n$, are rolled, and the sum is recorded. How should the dice's sides be weighted so that the resulting sum is closest to the uniform distribution on $2, 3, \ldots, 2n$? We…
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…
Let $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ be independent identically distributed random vectors in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We consider upper bounds on $\max_x \mathbb{P}(a_1X_1+\cdots+a_nX_n=x)$ under various restrictions on $X_i$ and the weights $a_i$. When…
We study nondeterministic strategies in parity games with the aim of computing a most permissive winning strategy. Following earlier work, we measure permissiveness in terms of the average number/weight of transitions blocked by the…
We consider games of chance played by someone with external capital that cannot be applied to the game and determine how this affects risk-adjusted optimal betting. Specifically, we focus on Kelly optimization as a metric, optimizing the…
In this article, we look at a hat-guessing game, in which each player must guess the color of their own hat while only seeing the hats of the other players. We focus on the case of two hat colors and a countably infinite number of players.…
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…
Corresponding to $n$ independent non-negative random variables $X_1,...,X_n$, are values $M_1,...,M_n$, where each $M_i$ is the expected value of the maximum of $n$ independent copies of $X_i$. We obtain an upper bound to the expected value…