Related papers: Improving on bold play when the gambler is restric…
We discuss a model of a two-person, non-cooperative stochastic game, inspired by the discrete version of the red-and-black gambling problem presented by Dubins and Savage. Assume that two players hold certain amounts of money. At each stage…
A casino offers the following game. There are three cups each containing a die. You are being told that the dice in the cups are all the same, but possibly nonstandard. For a bet of \$1, the game master shakes all three cups and lets you…
We consider the following simple game: We are given a table with ten slots indexed one to ten. In each of the ten rounds of the game, three dice are rolled and the numbers are added. We then put this number into any free slot. For each…
We describe the probability theory behind a casino game, blackjack, and the procedure to compute the optimal strategy for a deck of arbitrary cards and player's expected win given that he follows the optimal strategy. The exact blackjack…
I derive practical formulas for optimal arrangements between sophisticated stock market investors (namely, continuous-time Kelly gamblers or, more generally, CRRA investors) and the brokers who lend them cash for leveraged bets on a high…
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…
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…
Consider a two-player game repeated N times. Player 1 can choose between two styles (for interpretability, offensive and defensive), whereas Player 2 uses a single fixed style. Let X N\,:= \#wins -\#losses for Player 1 after N games, and…
Two players alternate tossing a biased coin where the probability of getting heads is p. The current player is awarded alpha points for tails and alpha+beta for heads. The first player reaching n points wins. For a completely unfair coin…
We study the following game. Three players start with initial capitals of $s_{1},s_{2},s_{3}$ dollars; in each round player $P_{m}$ is selected with probability $\frac{1}{3}$; then \emph{he} selects player $P_{n}$ and they play a game in…
The semigroup game is a two-person zero-sum game defined on a semigroup S as follows: Players 1 and 2 choose elements x and y in S, respectively, and player 1 receives a payoff f(xy) defined by a function f from S to [-1,1]. If the…
Consider a game consisting of independent turns with even money payoffs in which the player wins with a fixed probability $p \geq 1/3$ and loses with probability $1 - p$. The Labouchere system is a betting strategy which entails keeping a…
In the multiarmed bandit problem a gambler chooses an arm of a slot machine to pull considering a tradeoff between exploration and exploitation. We study the stochastic bandit problem where each arm has a reward distribution supported in a…
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,…
We consider two-player normal form games where each player has the same finite strategy set. The payoffs of each player are assumed to be i.i.d. random variables with a continuous distribution. We show that, with high probability, the…
We study two-player reachability games on finite graphs. At each state the interaction between the players is concurrent and there is a stochastic Nature. Players also play stochastically. The literature tells us that 1) Player B, who wants…
We give elementary examples within a framework for studying decisions under uncertainty where probabilities are only roughly known. The framework, in gambling terms, is that the size of a bet is proportional to the gambler's perceived…
A decision maker observes the evolving state of the world while constantly trying to predict the next state given the history of past states. The ability to benefit from such predictions depends not only on the ability to recognize patters…
In the game "Super Six", after successfully getting rid of a stick by rolling with the die a number that is not occupied, the player has the choice to continue to roll the die or to stop and to hand over the die to their opponent. The…
Flip a coin repeatedly, and stop whenever you want. Your payoff is the proportion of heads, and you wish to maximize this payoff in expectation. This so-called Chow-Robbins game is amenable to computer analysis, but while simple-minded…