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500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

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Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#51

Post by hedora »

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #26

>The court also upheld the lower court's conclusion that the $517,000 wager was excessive. Quebec courts are not arguing that Rock Paper Scissors is not a game of skill. They only ruled that the bet was "excessive" which is against the law. IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. I am thoroughly impressed that the loser actually made good on their commitment thoug…

The court argues it is a game of skill but follows up with:

> it seems evident … that the game also involves a large part of chance, so that it does not take 'only skill or bodily exertion on the part of the parties,'

They would have invalidated the bet even if wasn’t “excessive”. Presumably, the law also bans wagers on gambling activities, such as poker.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#52

Post by hedora »

cat199 wrote: post #43
flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #26

>The court also upheld the lower court's conclusion that the $517,000 wager was excessive. Quebec courts are not arguing that Rock Paper Scissors is not a game of skill. They only ruled that the bet was "excessive" which is against the law. IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. I am thoroughly impressed that the loser actually made good on their commitment thoug…

> betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive wouldn't this depend on income/assets of those involved?

I think the fact that a mortgage was taken out to pay off the debt was used to argue the loser didn’t have adequate assets to cover the bet, and that it was excessive.

I suspect if it was Bill Gates vs. Larry Ellison they wouldn’t have been able to argue the wager was excessive.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#54

Post by paulcole »

nogabebop23 wrote: post #47
paulcole wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your opponent is playing poorly, it’s unethical not to take advantage.

The argument isn't against good/poor play; it's if this is cheating. You're essentially saying it's unethical not to cheat if you can get away with it, which is obviously untrue

It’s not cheating. Your opponent knows they’re supposed to keep their throw a secret as long as possible. Otherwise why not just say, “here comes rock” before they start? It’s the same as a pitcher tipping their pitches in baseball.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#55

Post by paulcole »

alehul wrote: post #32
paulcole wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your opponent is playing poorly, it’s unethical not to take advantage.

I’d agree with “it’s fine to take advantage,” but “unethical not to”? Would that line apply when playing your young child in a game?

Yeah, I assumed we were talking about crushing a toddler in Rock Paper Scissors. Glad you picked up on that.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#56

Post by pierrebai »

klenwell wrote: post #41
codegladiator wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow that's news to me, I had no idea there was a world competition for this ! Guess i'll have to edit my other comment now :-/ edit: wait something looks odd at http://www.worldrps.com/ , is it really an internationally recognized competition ?

It's also apparently a college sport. From one of my favorite Metafilter comments: One chilly night in the fall of 2004, I chanced to find myself upon the streets of Toronto. I represented one half of the august top-rated debate team from a small upstate NY liberal arts school ([cough] named after a man shot by Aaron Burr), recovering from a day in which we had arrived at a debate tournament and discovered, 11 minute…

RPS in the strictest sense is a totally balanced game which cannot have a winning strategy if played completely logically.

Yet, all the RPS algorithm starts from the same premise.

The counter-intuitive reason why there can be winning strategy to RPS is that people try to devise winning strategies. Once you deviate from purely randomly choosing RPS, your adversary can try to analyze your past moves to create a model of your strategy and used that model to defeat you.

As for us poor humans, we're really bad at choosing randomly, so the best RPS players are very good at picking up what type of players you are.

PS: and in any population of players in a tournament, the mere presence of a few that want to have a non-random strategy will win over those without strategy. The strategy-less will just have a random streak of wins and losses no matter who they are facing. Of those with a strategy, the one with the best analysis of their opponent will win.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#57

Post by paulcole »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #30
paulcole wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your opponent is playing poorly, it’s unethical not to take advantage.

Hard disagree. Better games make affordances for players of differing skill level (like Go for example), but in games where this is not possible, the ethical calculation is more complex (although I would argue the ethical calculation isn't really relevant in a game, as the whole point of most games is about creating a safe place for the mutual exploration of systems). Whether or not the specific examples constitutes…

> as the whole point of most games is about creating a safe place for the mutual exploration of systems

What?

Can you imagine saying to any reasonable person, “do you want to create a safe place for the mutual exploration of systems?” And having them reply, “oh yeah, I would like to play a game.”

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#58

Post by luckylion »

codegladiator wrote: post #38
luckylion wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't influence the result of a coin toss, unless you're using a manipulated coin. I'd put rock paper scissors more into the poker category, but actually there's less of a luck-component in rps, because there's no drawing of random cards. You're only playing your opponent, and unless your opponent hast figured out a way to be completely random, you can "read" them if you're good enough. But that's very hard and i…

That's a nice explanation. Tennis would also have some part of mind games right ? The more I think about it, obviously it definitely is a matter of body excellence, but if you can always predict where your opponent going to hit, wouldn't that be a sure win (considering the players equal in matter of body)? I don't see any "reaction time" available in RPS (considering equal in matter of body), and no way to predict th…

Tennis certainly has a mind-game component, but it's smaller, I believe, because you're reacting intuitively, you simply don't have the time for mind games, unless those at the press conference where you tell everyone that you've barely been able to train.

> I don't see any "reaction time" available in RPS (considering equal in matter of body), and no way to predict the choice of the other one (as you stated) so similar to coin toss (you can't influence the choice of the opponent).

But you do have ways to predict the choice of your opponent. You "just" need to understand how they think. If you chose rock and they chose scissors, what will they choose next? Are they the type that figures "he will choose rock again, I'm going to pick paper", or are they thinking "he will try to mix it up and pic scissors because he thinks I'm going to react to rock by using paper, I'll take rock"?

If you played against a computer that just used a perfect random number generator, I'd agree with you. But you're playing a human, and they're terrible at being random.

It would be absolutely a game of luck if you played one game against one person without knowing who they are. But since, similar to Poker, you can learn over multiple rounds, the luck quickly fades. And apparently, if you're playing the odds, many people will start with certain choices, and they don't pick each choice at the same rate. There are quite a few articles (and books) out there, and they often mention the World Rock Paper Scissors Society, which also holds international tournaments.

Re: 500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court

#59

Post by user5994461 »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #2

Is RPS a game of skill?

Of course not.

The only edge you can get is if your opponent is making their sign early while their hand is still up. People do that unconsciously.

That being said, the game can have an element of strategy if it is played many rounds (hundreds), but humans don't wager beyond one or three rounds. Ain't a fun game if you need paper and keeping track of scores.

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