Related papers: Limit Cases And Strategy In Chutes and Ladders
We study the asymptotic behavior of the ratio of total return (or total profit) to total amount bet in a casino game. While the limit is well understood when the sequence of wagers is independent and identically distributed, here we…
We study the spreading of families in two-dimensional multispecies predator-prey systems, in which species cyclically dominate each other. In each time step randomly chosen individuals invade one of the nearest sites of the square lattice…
This study presents a rigorous mathematical approach to the optimization of round and betting policies in Blackjack, using Markov Decision Processes (MDP) and Expected Utility Theory. The analysis considers a direct confrontation between a…
This recreational mathematics article shows that the game of Snakes and Ladders is intransitive: square 69 has a winning edge over 79, which in turn beats 73, which beats 69. Analysis of the game is a nice illustration of Markov chains,…
Left, Center, Right is a popular dice game. We analyze the game using Markov chain and Monte Carlo methods. We compute the expected game length for two to eight players and determine the probability of winning for each player in the game.…
The Labouchere gambling system is hypothesized to increase the probability of winning a predetermined arbitrary profit in a gambling system such as a coin flip or a roulette game in which both payouts and odds are 1:1. However, use of the…
We revisit the game in which each of several players chooses a pattern and then a coin is flipped repeatedly until one of these patterns is generated. In particular, we demonstrate how to compute the probability of any one player winning…
In this paper we analyze and model three open problems posed by Harris, Insko, Prieto-Langarica, Stoisavljevic, and Sullivan in 2020 concerning the tipsy cop and robber game on graphs. The three different scenarios we model account for…
We continue our studies of burn-off chip-firing games from [Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci. 15 (2013), no. 1, 121-132; MR3040546] and [Australas. J. Combin. 68 (2017), no. 3, 330-345; MR3656659]. The latter article introduced randomness…
There have been several popular reports of various groups exploiting the deterministic nature of the game of roulette for profit. Moreover, through its history the inherent determinism in the game of roulette has attracted the attention of…
A gambler walks into a hypothetical fair casino with a very real dollar bill, but by the time he leaves he's exchanged the dollar for a random amount of money. What is lost in the process? It may be that the gambler walks out at the end of…
We consider two-player combinatorial games in which the graph of positions is random and perhaps infinite, focusing on directed Galton-Watson trees. As the offspring distribution is varied, a game can undergo a phase transition, in which…
An evolutionary prisoner's dilemma (PD) game is studied with players located on a hierarchical structure of layered square lattices. The players can follow two strategies [D (defector) and C (cooperator)] and their income comes from PD…
The laws of chance are often subtle and deceptive. This is why games of chance work. People are convinced that they obey seemingly intuitive laws, while the underlying mathematical structure reveals a different and more complex reality.…
The paper investigates the long-time behavior of zero-sum linear-quadratic stochastic differential games, aiming to demonstrate that, under appropriate conditions, both the saddle strategy and the optimal state process exhibit the…
Here, we present a variant of the sliding coins game. Two coins are placed on distinct squares of a semi-infinite linear board with squares numbered $0, 1, 2, dots, $. Two players take turns and move a coin to a lower unoccupied square.…
Dice odds in the board game RISK were first investigated by Tan, fixed by Osbourne, and extended by Blatt. We generalized dice odds further, varying the number of sides and the number of dice used in a single battle. We show that the…
We consider concurrent games played on graphs. At every round of a game, each player simultaneously and independently selects a move; the moves jointly determine the transition to a successor state. Two basic objectives are the safety…
In the Penney-Ante game, Player I chooses a head/tail string of a predetermined length $n\ge3$. Player II, upon seeing Player I's choice, chooses another head/tail string of the same length. A coin is then tossed repeatedly and the player…
Games often incorporate random elements in the form of dice or shuffled card decks. This randomness is a key contributor to the player experience and the variety of game situations encountered. There is a tension between a level of…