Throwing For Dollars: New Jersey Lottery To Host Rock Paper Scissors Contest

The New Jersey Lottery is sponsoring what it is calling the inaugural New Jersey Lottery Rock Paper Scissors Throwdown at the American Dream Mall in East Rutherford. The free-to-enter tourney, which is open to 384 people, will take place March 29-30.

There is $25,000 in prize money, with a cool $10,000 going to the winner.

Fun!

Or illegal gambling that is ripe for abuse by nefarious nogoodniks? You decide!

All right, for starters, it’s legal. Sorry for teasing otherwise. Basically, under New Jersey state law — specifically N.J.S.A. 2C:37-1 — in order for something to be considered gambling, there have to be three items present: consideration, chance, and a prize. In this scenario, there is no entry fee, thus no “consideration,” thus the whole thing is definitely legal, without need for debate over whether Rock Paper Scissors is a game of chance or skill.

So bully for you, New Jersey Lottery!

Now, about those nogoodniks … Rock Paper Scissors is kinda-sorta cheatable. Just Google it. 

Or heck, keep reading, it’s not my tournament.

Tossing late

The best way to cheat appears to be the ol’ “throw late” move, in which you throw a hair later than your opponent. To do this, keep your hand in “rock” mode until the last possible instant. It’s easy — especially to a practiced hand, so break out that mirror and get to work — to switch from closed fist (rock) to either paper or scissors without getting caught, but darn near impossible to pull back a paper or scissors into rock.

So there’s one idea.

Of course, if outright cheating isn’t your idea of fun, you can utilize proven psychological warfare in an effort to defeat your opponent.

According to Greg Costikyan’s book Uncertainty in Games — published by MIT Press, so, you know, smart — most inexperienced players lead with rock.

“The name of the game begins with ‘Rock,’ and if you are mentally sorting through the options, it is the first one that will occur to you,” he wrote. “And the word ‘rock’ itself has connotations of strength and immovability. These factors lead players to choose Rock on their first go more often than chance would dictate.”

Another tip: People will rarely throw the same symbol three times in a row, and almost never four times in a row.

“Given the nature of human psychology, if Paper has come up twice, there is far less than a 1 in 3 chance that the player will choose it again,” he wrote.

Of course, while Costikyan is an expert — he’s a game designer — one thing he isn’t is a researcher.

Study abroad

For that, let’s travel to China, where in April of 2014, Zhijian Wang, Bin Xu, and Hai-Jun Zhou — of, respectively, Zhejiang University, Zhejiang Gongshang University, and the State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences — wrote a paper titled Social cycling and conditional responses in the Rock-Paper-Scissors game.

The two big takeaways from the study are:

1. Winners tend to stick with what they just threw, so if you just lost to rock, throw paper, and so on and so forth.
2. Losers tend to shift counter-clockwise, especially in high-stakes games. So if someone threw and lost a rock, they’re likely to throw scissors next. If they lost with paper, expect rock. If they threw scissors, chances are they’re going paper next. 

I wonder if we have top American minds working on the Rock Paper Scissors problem. This should be a non-partisan issue, obviously.

Finally, for those of you who made it this far, perhaps the best way to play is with complete reckless abandon. 

For those math-forward people, it’s called this: Nash Equilibrium. Just play completely randomly so your opponent can’t use any of those psychological games on you.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!

At any rate … if you’re interested in competing in the tournament, here’s the registration link. Get practicing.