eprintid: 23867
rev_number: 20
eprint_status: archive
userid: 3114
dir: disk0/00/02/38/67
datestamp: 2017-12-22 12:26:59
lastmod: 2018-01-17 13:23:23
status_changed: 2017-12-22 12:26:59
type: workingPaper
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Duersch, Peter
creators_name: Lambrecht, Marco
creators_name: Oechssler, Joerg
corp_creators: Universität Heidelberg
title: Measuring Skill and Chance in Games
subjects: ddc-330
divisions: i-181000
abstract: Online and offline gaming has become a multi-billion dollar industry. However, games of chance are prohibited or tightly regulated in many jurisdictions. Thus, the question whether a game predominantly depends on skill
or chance has important legal and regulatory implications. In this paper, we suggest a new empirical criterion for distinguishing games of skill from games
of chance: All players are ranked according to a "best-fit" Elo algorithm. The wider the distribution of player ratings are in a game, the more important is the role of skill. Most importantly, we provide a new benchmark ("50%-chess") that allows to decide whether games predominantly (more than 50%) depend on chance, as this criterion is often used by courts. We apply the
method to large datasets of various two-player games (e.g. chess, poker, backgammon, tetris). Our findings indicate that most popular online games, including poker, are below the threshold of 50% skill and thus depend pre-
dominantly on chance. In fact, poker contains about as much skill as chess when 3 out of 4 chess games are replaced by a coin flip.
date: 2017-12-20
id_scheme: DOI
id_number: 10.11588/heidok.00023867
schriftenreihe_cluster_id: sr-3
schriftenreihe_order: 0643
ppn_swb: 1658675606
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-238671
language: eng
bibsort: DUERSCHPETMEASURINGS20171220
full_text_status: public
series: Discussion Paper Series
volume: 0643
place_of_pub: Heidelberg
citation:   Duersch, Peter ; Lambrecht, Marco ; Oechssler, Joerg  (2017) Measuring Skill and Chance in Games.  [Working paper]     
document_url: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/23867/7/Duersch_Lambrecht_Oechssler_2017_dp0643.pdf