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

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141–150 of 221 posts

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

#141
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it apt. Your attempted reductio ad absurdum assumes there's an injective mapping from activities to points-of-activity. This is clearly not true.

Attempted? I thought I pulled it off. Would love to get feedback on how to do better next time.

Attempting is a prerequisite to pulling it off.

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

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love playing cards, but poker is just... not as much fun because there's too much luck involved compared to, say, Rummy-type games (like my biased favorite, the Brazilian Buraco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraco )

There's only "too much luck" in games like poker, or backgammon, sports betting, over a short timeline, which is probably longer than you think. That can be hundreds, or even thousands of hands or games. Over a statistically large sample of hands or games, skilled players will almost always dominate unskilled players.

> Over a statistically large sample of hands or games, skilled players will almost always dominate unskilled players.

That's true of any game or sport, though. Poker is just one in which that is "less true".

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

#143

>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…

> IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. IANAL either but to me the law/government is there to uphold contracts. Not judge if they are smart or deemed a good idea.

But you can't contract to do something illegal, and contracts must have consideration ("this for that"). Not sure what their test for excessiveness was.

Reminds me of predatory lending rules like charging more than X% interest is excessive.

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

#144

>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…

> IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. IANAL either but to me the law/government is there to uphold contracts. Not judge if they are smart or deemed a good idea.

Not really. I can't contract you to do something illegal for me (e.g. kill somebody, even me!). Now, if you are saying that these kind of contracts SHOULD be valid, that's another thing but that's not the case at the moment (and rightly so, imo)

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

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither a bridge or poker player, but these games that have both a huge mathematical and psychological component to their strategy seem to be obvious games of skill. Even blackjack with much stricter (loosing) probabilities IMO is a game of skill because "good" players will lose at a slower rate than bad ones (even without card counting). Rock-paper-scissors just seems too simple to allow for any performance improvem…

Fwiw when playing my wife at rock paper scissors I once won over 20 times in a row. The odds against this happening randomly are pretty extreme - but I know her very well and can read her well enough that it was possible. I think it's fair enough to say that there might be a psychological element there that could pull the game out of straight random chance.

I will give you 100-1 odds you could not beat me in rock-paper-scissors 20 times in a row.

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

#146

>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…

> IANAL, but betting half a million dollars on three hand gestures qualifies as excessive imho. IANAL either but to me the law/government is there to uphold contracts. Not judge if they are smart or deemed a good idea.

This is such a fantastically American point of view.

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

#147
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the excessive argument. The argument should be to completely ban gambling, because it's been proven to be a harmful practice on society, whether practiced in excess or not.

Wagers on games of skill are not a gamble. Gambling can only be performed with games of chance.

People gamble all the time on games of skill. I'm no sports nerd, but I'm fairly sure that most of what decides who wins is skill, rather than chance.

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

#148
post #117

I want to know more about the circumstances that led up to this. What situation results in someone saying "I'll let you $500k I can beat you at Rock, Paper, Scissors..." And actually being willing to follow through?

I'm trying to figure out the circumstances that you'd make a promise and not follow through on it. There's something to be amazed by, by this story, but it's not doing what you say you will. This thread's...disappointing.

It's really the same thing. Under what circumstances would you figure 'as a person who does what i say i will do, 500k is a reasonable amount to bet, even though I need to take out a mortgage'?

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

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only "too much luck" in games like poker, or backgammon, sports betting, over a short timeline, which is probably longer than you think. That can be hundreds, or even thousands of hands or games. Over a statistically large sample of hands or games, skilled players will almost always dominate unskilled players.

> Over a statistically large sample of hands or games, skilled players will almost always dominate unskilled players. That's true of any game or sport, though. Poker is just one in which that is "less true".

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of this. While it's true that the more skilled party in a traditional physical sport will do better over the long run, their advantage will also be more apparent over the short run.

Skill in poker comes from managing variance over a long horizon; the advantage for a particular hand is largely determined by randomness

The advantage in sports does not derive from randomness, but from physical skill, and is generally apparent, and quantifiable, over a single contest (typically represented by a point spread or odds of winning). It would be almost impossible to quantify odds of winning a given poker hand before any cards are dealt.

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