Losses Disguised as Wins Affect Game Selection on Multiline Slots

Multiline slots are exciting games that contain features which make them alluring. One such feature is a loss disguised as a win (LDW); wherein, players win less than they wager (e.g., bet 2 dollars, win back 50 cents), but this net loss is disguised by flashing graphics and winning sounds. Research to date concludes that LDWs are both rewarding and reinforcing. Here, we investigated whether LDWs affect players’ game selection. Thirty-two undergraduate students with experience playing slot machines played 100 spins on four games—two had positive payback percentages (115%) and two had negative payback percentages (85%) after 100 spins. For each payback percentage condition, there was a game with no LDWs and a game with a moderate number of LDWs. For the 100 spins, players could choose to play whichever game they wished. They then rated their preference for each game following the 100-spins and chose a game to continue playing. The majority of players preferred playing the positive payback percentage game with LDWs and chose to continue playing this game over the three other games. We conclude that in addition to LDWs being reinforcing and rewarding, LDWs do in fact influence game selection. We conclude that responsible gambling initiatives should educate players about LDWs.     

Bayesian learning in repeated games of incomplete information

In Nachbar [20] and, more definitively, Nachbar [22], I argued that, for a large class of discounted infinitely repeated games of complete information (i.e. stage game payoff functions are common knowledge), it is impossible to construct a Bayesian learning theory in which player beliefs are simultaneously weakly cautious, symmetric, and consistent. The present paper establishes a similar impossibility theorem for repeated games of incomplete information, that is, for repeated games in which stage game payoff functions are private information. Received: 15 October 1997/Accepted: 17 March 1999     

The partnered core of a game with side payments

An outcome of a game is partnered if there are no asymmetric dependencies between any two players. For a cooperative game, a payoff is in the partnered core of the game if it is partnered, feasible and cannot be improved upon by any coalition of players. We show that the relative interior of the core of a game with side payments is contained in the partnered core. For quasi-strictly convex games the partnered core coincides with the relative interior of the core. When there are no more than three partnerships, the sums of the payoffs to partnerships are constant across all core payoffs. When there are no more than three players, the partnered core satisfies additional properties. We also illustrate our main result for coalition structure games.     

Depth of reasoning in strategic form games

The depth of human reasoning in interactive decision-making situations can be assessed experimentally in dominance solvable non-cooperative games. We first review the studies employing two sorts of games—the Beauty Contest game and the Investment game. Studies employing these games show that: (i) people typically engage in relatively low levels of strategic reasoning; and (ii) there are individual differences in the depth of reasoning. There are other lines of research employing other types of games and definitions of the depth of reasoning that support the two conclusions above. We argue that these studies underestimate depth of reasoning because it is also necessary to apply a mental model about other players’ reasoning ability in order to play well. Implications of those findings to the theory-of-mind or Machiavellian Intelligence research are discussed.     

CAN SUBGAME PERFECT EQUILIBRIUM THREATS FOSTER COOPERATION? AN EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF FINITE‐HORIZON FOLK THEOREMS

This paper considers extended prisoners' dilemma games in which a second pure strategy equilibrium in the stage game allows for mutual cooperation in all but the last round of the finitely repeated game as an equilibrium outcome. We distinguish a strict and a weak extension of the prisoners' dilemma game in a long and a short horizon treatment. A comparison with the corresponding finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma games shows that the strict additional equilibrium increases cooperation rates while the weak does not. This result is robust to the variation of the time horizon. (JEL C73, C91)     

SIMULTANEOUS DECISION‐MAKING IN COMPETITIVE AND COOPERATIVE ENVIRONMENTS

We experimentally investigate simultaneous decision‐making in two contrasting environments: one that encourages competition (lottery contest) and one that encourages cooperation (public good game). We find that simultaneous participation in the public good game affects behavior in the contest, decreasing sub‐optimal overbidding. Contributions to the public good are not affected by participation in the contest. The direction of behavioral spillover is explained by differences in strategic uncertainty and path‐dependence across games. Our design allows us to compare preferences for cooperation and competition. We find that in early periods, there is a negative correlation between decisions in competitive and in cooperative environments. (JEL C72, C91)     

BECAUSE IT'S FREE POKER! A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF FREE TEXAS HOLD'EM POKER TOURNAMENTS

The game of poker has dramatically increased in popularity in America over the past decade, and includes a new trend in poker in which tournaments are played with no monetary wagering. These “free” poker tournaments are the primary focus of this project. Our interest in these free poker tournaments was twofold: first, we wished to identify what would motivate a person to play poker when there is no profit motive; second, we wanted to learn how the social dynamics of the game itself may or may not change when monetary risk is not present. Through covert participant observation of free poker tournaments at four different locations we were able to discover three main motivations among the players: sharpening skills for later cash games, sociability, and gaining the status of a “regular player.” We also discovered that the tenor and tempo of the game tended to vary not as a function of the location, but rather because of the social class of the players. We offer several hypotheses to guide future research endeavors in this area.     

Policy Linkage and Uncertainty in International Agreements

This article uses noncooperative game theory to analyze the potential benefits of linking trade agreements to agreements covering domestic policies in a world of uncertainty. I show that nonlinkage is more desirable if there is a positive probability that a country will erroneously believe that its trading partner is cheating on the agreement (triggering an unnecessary punishment phase). In contrast, linkage is more desirable if there is a positive probability that cheating will go unnoticed.     

Fully-Revealing Equilibria of Multiple-Sender Signaling and Screening Models

Models of incomplete information have played a major role in the fields of political science and political economy. The models have almost exclusively been signaling models, and their substantive focus is frequently on situations in which the extensive form is not dictated by institutional requirements or procedures. We explore the relation between multiple-sender signaling games and the corresponding screening or mechanism design games without transfers and establish an equivalence result. If there is a fully-revealing equilibrium in the signaling game there is also a full-information optimal mechanism that yields the principal’s optimal policy in every state. The converse, that fully-revealing equilibria exist in the signaling game if a full-information optimal mechanism exists, is true if and only if the mechanism involves only the selection of policies that are optimal for some belief about the state. We also present two straightforward sufficient conditions for the existence of full-information optimal mechanisms. When either holds, fully-revealing equilibria in the signaling and screening games exist. The perceived advantage of the signaling over the screening approach – that no commitment by the principal is assumed – may be over-stated as flexibility in specifying off the path beliefs can mimic commitment.     

Experimental Analysis of the Game in Pathological Gamblers: Effect of the Immediacy of the Reward in Slot Machines

Slot machines are the most “addictive” games because (a) the disorder (pathological gambling) appears more rapidly in these games than with any other; (b) most patients who seek professional help are mainly addicted to electronic gambling, and (c) even though it is not the more frequent game, most of all the money spent on legal games of chance (at least in Spain) goes to slot machines. Structural characteristics of slot machines induce to gamble because electronic games show the main parameters of operant conditioning, mainly the immediacy of the reinforcement. Ten pathological gamblers played slot machine in two conditions: immediate and delayed reinforcement. The results corroborate the importance of the immediacy of the reinforcement in gambling, because when the result appears immediately (after 2 s), more games are played than when the result is delayed only 10 s. Critical issues in problem gambling prevention and public health are discussed.     

Relationship between state anxiety and success rate in game performance, coach's evaluation among Japanese university volleyball players

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between state anxiety and individual athletic game performance. The subjects were 54 male players of 4 teams (The average age was 20.5 (SD=1.09) years), who participated in the Kanto university men's volleyball league games in the spring of year 2010. The subjects were asked to respond to a Japanese version of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), which was measured at 4 time periods (the day before, the day of game, just before the game, just after the game) for each of a total of 40 games (each team played 10 games). The results were as follows: (1) Relationships between state anxiety and success rate in game performance (spike, reception, block) showed different correlation depending on each game performance. (2) The group of players who performed well in games collected by coaches scored lower than the more badly-performing group in the score of state anxiety on the day of game and just after the game. (3) The temporal change of the score of state anxiety from just before the game to just after the game was different depending on whether they performed well or not in games.     

MULTIPLE EQUILIBRIA AND DETERRENCE IN AIRLINE MARKETS

We use a longitudinal dataset from the U.S. airline industry to estimate three different models for entry games with very general forms of heterogeneity between U.S. carriers in airline markets: a simultaneous game with complete information and two sequential games with or without strategic entry deterrence. In a sequential game with entry deterrence, an incumbent decides whether to incur a cost to deter potential entrants. We show that the model with sequential games with strategic deterrence provides the best fit to the data. We conclude that the results reject the hypothesis of a static model and support the hypothesis of the existence of strategic entry deterrence. (JEL L1)     

Language,games and language games

How do social values come about and gain legitimacy? Starting from the premise that discourses of social analysis affect the ways in which social norms develop and proliferate, this article models the evolution of professional codes and dialects using Wittgenstein’s idea of a language game. A language game is formalized as a repeated game of tacit coordination played among participants with informational asymmetries. The informational asymmetries model the different meanings that people assign to the same word used in a conversation. A language is formalized as a code that emerges as a result of repeated interactions in a language game. The paper argues that certain codes—such as those based on the real number system—lead to more reliable strategies in language games. The result is used to argue that professional dialects based on axiomatizable codes—such as physics, mathematics and economics—are less likely to experience fragmentation into intra-disciplinary ‘sects,’ camps and incommensurable paradigms than are professional dialects that are not based on an axiomatizable code—such as sociology, psychology, organization studies, and strategic management studies. The idea of a language game is extended to explore ways in which certain disciplines can establish cognitive jurisdiction over particular phenomena, starting from a particular set of codes, and thereby claim ‘cognitive monopolies.’ A rudimentary theory of the market for ideas is advanced.     

On the adjudication of conflicting claims: an experimental study

This paper reports an experimental study on three well-known solutions for problems of adjudicating conflicting claims: the constrained equal awards, the proportional, and the constrained equal losses rules. We first let subjects play three games designed such that the unique equilibrium allocation coincides with the recommendation of one of these three rules. In addition, we let subjects play an additional game that has the property that all (and only) strategy profiles in which players coordinate on the same rule constitute a strict Nash equilibrium. While in the first three games subjects’ play easily converges to the unique equilibrium rule, in the last game the proportional rule overwhelmingly prevails as a coordination device, especially when we frame the game as an hypothetical bankruptcy situation. We also administered a questionnaire to a different group of students, asking them to act as impartial arbitrators to solve (among others) the same problems played in the lab. Also in this case, respondents were sensitive to the framing of the questions, but the proportional rule was selected by the vast majority of respondents.     

Benford’s Law and Number Selection in Fixed-Odds Numbers Game

In fixed-odds numbers games, the prizes and the odds of winning are known at the time of placement of the wager. Both players and operators are subject to the vagaries of luck in such games. Most game operators limit their liability exposure by imposing a sales limit on the bets received for each bet type, at the risk of losing the rejected bets to the underground operators. This raises a question—how should the game operator set the appropriate sales limit? We argue that the choice of the sales limit is intimately related to the ways players select numbers to bet on in the games. There are ample empirical evidences suggesting that players do not choose all numbers with equal probability, but have a tendency to bet on (small) numbers that are closely related to events around them (e.g., birth dates, addresses, etc.). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to quantify this phenomenon and examine its relation to the classical Benford’s law. We use this connection to develop a choice model, and propose a method to set the appropriate sales limit in these games.     

Near Wins Prolong Gambling on a Video Lottery Terminal

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether near wins can prolong gambling activity on a video lottery terminal. In a three-reel game, near wins were operationally defined as two identical symbols followed by a third different symbol. Players in an experimental condition were exposed to 27% near wins in a series of continuous losses, whereas players in a control group were exposed to none. Participants played as long as they wished, and received real money for their wins. The results showed that players in the near win condition played 33% more games than did the control group. The results of this study suggest that near wins can be added to the list of factors that may motivate people to gamble despite the probability of monetary loss.     

Scoring rule voting games and dominance solvability

This article studies the dominance solvability (by iterated deletion of weakly dominated strategies) of general scoring rule voting games when there are three alternatives. The scoring rules we study include Plurality rule, Approval voting, Borda rule, and Relative Utilitarianism. We provide sufficient conditions for dominance solvability of general scoring rule voting games. The sufficient conditions that we provide for dominance solvability are in terms of one statistic of the game: sufficient agreement on the best alternative or on the worst alternative. We also show that the solutions coincide with the set of Condorcet Winners whenever the sufficient conditions for dominance solvability are satisfied. Approval Voting performs the best in terms of our criteria.     

Illusory Control, Gambling, and Video Gaming: An Investigation of Regular Gamblers and Video Game Players

There is a paucity of empirical research examining the possible association between gambling and video game play. In two studies, we examined the association between video game playing, erroneous gambling cognitions, and risky gambling behaviour. One hundred and fifteen participants, including 65 electronic gambling machine (EGM) players and 50 regular video game players, were administered a questionnaire that examined video game play, gambling involvement, problem gambling, and beliefs about gambling. We then assessed each groups' performance on a computerised gambling task that involved real money. A post-game survey examined perceptions of the skill and chance involved in the gambling task. The results showed that video game playing itself was not significantly associated with gambling involvement or problem gambling status. However, among those persons who both gambled and played video games, video game playing was uniquely and significantly positively associated with the perception of direct control over chance-based gambling events. Further research is needed to better understand the nature of this association, as it may assist in understanding the impact of emerging digital gambling technologies.     

Strategic uncertainty aversion in bargaining — Experimental evidence

In a series of four experiments I demonstrate the existence of significant aversion to basically non-existent strategic uncertainty in very simple bargaining games. This aversion goes far beyond ordinary risk or ambiguity aversion. Specifically, although almost nobody expects or chooses the rejection of an offered equal split in a bargaining game, participants behave as if there would be a considerably large rejection rate for equal splits. This behavior is robust across experimental designs and subject pools, can lead to inefficiencies in markets, and is incompatible with consistency of strategies and rational beliefs.     

Mixed Strategies in Games of Capacity Manipulation in Hospital–Intern Markets

We investigate games of capacity manipulation in hospital-intern markets as proposed by Konishi and ünver (Soc Choice Welfare, in press). While Konishi and ünver (Soc Choice Welfare, in press) show that there may not exist a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in general, there exists a mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium in such a game. We show that every hospital weakly prefers a Nash equilibrium to any “larger” capacity profiles, whether the equilibrium is in pure or mixed strategies. In particular, a Nash equilibrium is weakly preferred by hospitals to the outcome that results from truthful reporting.