4 ms·

While I certainly think that Penny Auctions are less than useless, I really don't see how they can be classified as gambling. I think that the salient point he

While I certainly think that Penny Auctions are less than useless, I really don't see how they can be classified as gambling. I think that the salient point here is that there is no element of chance. Sure, you don't know how your opponents will behave, but you also don't know how your opponent in a chess game will behave. The nondeterministic behavior is not endogenous to the game itself.

tempestn 10y ago
By that logic online rock-paper-scissors is a game of skill too.
- menage 10y ago
  It is! See the International RoShamBo Programming Competition: https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/rsbpc.html https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/rsbpc.html
  - mamon 10y ago
    Hmm, the little I know about game theory, wouldn't that competition actually be about "who writes the best (most uniform) random number generator?"
    - mod 10y ago
      It could be, if they were all trying to be random. It could also be about "trying to exploit others' RNG" or more aptly "trying to exploit the tendencies of other competitors." If I entered as a human participant I would get crushed.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        If I recall correctly, an effectively designed strategy performs at least as well as a random number generator when playing against a random player, and can do better against a non-random player. So if someone used the metastrategy of entering a shill competitor that always chooses rock, in a field where everyone else is perfectly random, then a true competitor that always chooses paper would win the competition. Without the shill, the winner would be random. Therefore, you have to assume there is at least one strategy in the competition that can be consistently beaten, and that perfectly random players cannot be beaten by strategy and are therefore ignorable as part of the overall field. So the winning metastrategy is to design a non-random, yet unpredictable strategy. As I recall, "Iocaine Powder", which created an internal model of the behavior of the other players and then played to beat the model's prediction, was an early dominator. There have also been players that won by "cheating", such as by examining the stack of the other player's program. Either way, the best way to win is to read your opponent's mind. So after Iocaine Powder wins, the next year's competitors could put a copy of it into their programs, so that they can detect whether Iocaine Powder 1.0 would be able to play to beat them and then change their play to something else. Meanwhile, Iocaine Powder 2.0 also has a model of Iocaine Powder 1.0, and whenever it detects that someone is playing to beat IP1, it plays to beat that instead. After several years, everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows that you were going to play rock, so I was going to play paper, so you were going to play scissors instead, so I was going to play rock instead, so that you had to play paper, so that I had to play scissors, so you end up playing rock. It's way more complex than "international rock-paper-scissors competition" makes it sound. If a human competitor entered, the bots should be able to predict what that person would order for lunch for the next week. It's crazy.
      - Yen 10y ago
        One particularly pithy implementation of that idea: http://www.rpscontest.com/entry/614005 http://www.rpscontest.com/entry/614005
caf 10y ago
I think if you were playing chess on a chess board of indeterminate size, of which you can only see the places occupied by your own pieces, against an indeterminate number of players, any of whom can add additional pieces to the board at will... it would look a lot like a game of chance. It would also be very silly.
shawabawa3 10y ago
Think of it as placing a bet that nobody else will bid in the next 15 seconds (or however long). It's very clearly gambling as you cannot influence the result once you've placed the bet.
- pests 10y ago
  Or is it placing a bet when you skillfully deduce no one will be betting in the next 15 seconds?
  - shawabawa3 10y ago
    Doesn't matter if it's skillful really. Both sportsbetting and poker clearly are (there are many long-term winners) and that doesn't stop them being gambling.
- ryporter 10y ago
  That's not clear to me. By that logic, any game in which players took one turn each, sequentially, would be gambling. The fact that you can no longer control the outcome does not make it gambling. You need to have a nondeterministic component that is exogenous to the players.
- mod 10y ago
  I don't think it's so clear. You can place your bet with knowledge, despite not being able to influence the result. See also: poker, insider stock trading, etc. Edit: Given that they have bots stealing the items, I don't think this is actually gambling--it's actually just entirely wasting money. If it worked as-presented, I would say there's a marginal amount of skill involved, which would have its effect magnified over time, as happens in poker.

tempestn 10y ago

By that logic online rock-paper-scissors is a game of skill too.

menage 10y ago
It is! See the International RoShamBo Programming Competition: https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/rsbpc.html https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/rsbpc.html
- mamon 10y ago
  Hmm, the little I know about game theory, wouldn't that competition actually be about "who writes the best (most uniform) random number generator?"
  - mod 10y ago
    It could be, if they were all trying to be random. It could also be about "trying to exploit others' RNG" or more aptly "trying to exploit the tendencies of other competitors." If I entered as a human participant I would get crushed.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      If I recall correctly, an effectively designed strategy performs at least as well as a random number generator when playing against a random player, and can do better against a non-random player. So if someone used the metastrategy of entering a shill competitor that always chooses rock, in a field where everyone else is perfectly random, then a true competitor that always chooses paper would win the competition. Without the shill, the winner would be random. Therefore, you have to assume there is at least one strategy in the competition that can be consistently beaten, and that perfectly random players cannot be beaten by strategy and are therefore ignorable as part of the overall field. So the winning metastrategy is to design a non-random, yet unpredictable strategy. As I recall, "Iocaine Powder", which created an internal model of the behavior of the other players and then played to beat the model's prediction, was an early dominator. There have also been players that won by "cheating", such as by examining the stack of the other player's program. Either way, the best way to win is to read your opponent's mind. So after Iocaine Powder wins, the next year's competitors could put a copy of it into their programs, so that they can detect whether Iocaine Powder 1.0 would be able to play to beat them and then change their play to something else. Meanwhile, Iocaine Powder 2.0 also has a model of Iocaine Powder 1.0, and whenever it detects that someone is playing to beat IP1, it plays to beat that instead. After several years, everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows that you were going to play rock, so I was going to play paper, so you were going to play scissors instead, so I was going to play rock instead, so that you had to play paper, so that I had to play scissors, so you end up playing rock. It's way more complex than "international rock-paper-scissors competition" makes it sound. If a human competitor entered, the bots should be able to predict what that person would order for lunch for the next week. It's crazy.
    - Yen 10y ago
      One particularly pithy implementation of that idea: http://www.rpscontest.com/entry/614005 http://www.rpscontest.com/entry/614005

caf 10y ago

I think if you were playing chess on a chess board of indeterminate size, of which you can only see the places occupied by your own pieces, against an indeterminate number of players, any of whom can add additional pieces to the board at will... it would look a lot like a game of chance. It would also be very silly.

shawabawa3 10y ago

Think of it as placing a bet that nobody else will bid in the next 15 seconds (or however long). It's very clearly gambling as you cannot influence the result once you've placed the bet.

pests 10y ago
Or is it placing a bet when you skillfully deduce no one will be betting in the next 15 seconds?
- shawabawa3 10y ago
  Doesn't matter if it's skillful really. Both sportsbetting and poker clearly are (there are many long-term winners) and that doesn't stop them being gambling.
ryporter 10y ago
That's not clear to me. By that logic, any game in which players took one turn each, sequentially, would be gambling. The fact that you can no longer control the outcome does not make it gambling. You need to have a nondeterministic component that is exogenous to the players.
mod 10y ago
I don't think it's so clear. You can place your bet with knowledge, despite not being able to influence the result. See also: poker, insider stock trading, etc. Edit: Given that they have bots stealing the items, I don't think this is actually gambling--it's actually just entirely wasting money. If it worked as-presented, I would say there's a marginal amount of skill involved, which would have its effect magnified over time, as happens in poker.