From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Thu Jun 12 2003 - 12:10:36 MDT
Sabine Atkins writes:
> Now with so much discussion going on about gambling etc. I'd like to know if
> anybody on this list has ever heard of Juan M. R. Parrondo and his research? If
> yes, what's your opinion?
>
> I just came across it very recently, have no opinion yet and not much knowledge
> about it. So far, I only know this: "Two games of chance, each guaranteed to
> give a player a predominance of losses in the long term, can add up to a winning
> outcome if the player alternates between the two games". (from
> http://www.sciencenews.org/20000115/note16ref.asp)
I wrote about this in July, 2001, at this URL:
http://www.extropy.org/exi-lists/archive/0107/86184.html.
The problem is that for his paradox to work, the games have to be set
up so that the payoff depends on your cash balance. No real games work
that way, so the paradox is artificial. In my posting above I came up
with a trivial example which demonstrates that.
Hal
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