Started by Tomás Rinaldi (@tomas_rinaldi) ·
the weirdest split or steal ever
One contestant flat-out announces he's going to steal, and promises to share the money after the show. The other guy is furious. Then they open the balls. Better game theory lesson than any lecture I sat through.
5 sources · 26 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- golden balls. the weirdest split or steal ever!
- Ended at
- “van den assem split or steal paper”
The Trail
- golden balls. the weirdest split or steal ever! (youtube.com)
- Golden Balls (en.wikipedia.org)
- Prisoner's dilemma (en.wikipedia.org)
- Cheap talk (en.wikipedia.org)
talk is cheap, unless it changes what the other person thinks you'll do
- “van den assem split or steal paper” (google.com)
What I came away with
Split or steal isn't quite a prisoner's dilemma: if the other player steals, you get nothing either way, so stealing is only weakly better. Economists who studied hundreds of the show's finals found roughly half of players chose split, even with real money at stake.
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