Online Gaming - An Economic Analysis

互联网上的在线游戏已经成为一个价值数十亿美元的行业。该行业的规模显然证明了对随之而来的监管、经济和法律问题进行仔细调查是合理的。在过去的18个月里，我们将注意力集中在网络游戏的两个重要方面。第一个方面是，技能游戏与机会游戏的区别是什么。这一问题具有重要的法律和监管意义，因为在许多法域，赌博是被禁止或受到严格管制的。立法者或法院通常认为，如果一款游戏的技能含量超过50%，它就是合法的。然而，没有普遍接受的衡量标准，可以用来衡量技能与机会的内容。我们成功地创造了一种新的衡量标准，即最适合的ELO评级，适用于所有游戏。我们从各种网络游戏的领先提供商那里获得了大量的数据集，并使用它们来经验地比较不同游戏的技能程度和机会。我们的方法试图捕捉玩家能力的异质性。第一个结果表明，扑克没有通过50%的技能参照点，因此更接近于一场机会游戏。在拟议的延长期内，我们将以这些基础为基础，通过对其他游戏进行分类，将分析扩展到多人游戏和体育，并执行各种稳健性检查来完成这项工作(以及博士生Marco Lambrecht的论文)。第二个方面涉及游戏的动态方面，包括问题赌博和理性选择。我们的重点是热手谬误和追逐损失。我们制定了相应的假设，清理了数据集，并对在线玩家的延续行为进行了初步分析。在请求延期期间，我们打算调查冒险行为的变化，并根据个人指标对球员进行分类，以建立成瘾的标志。此外，我们将进行一项实验室实验，这应该有助于我们区分追逐损失的现象和赌徒的谬误。从经验数据来看，这种差异是无法观察到的。

Online gaming on the internet has become a multi-billion dollar industry. The size of the industry clearly justifies a careful investigation of the regulatory, economic, and legal issues that come with it. In the last 18 months, we focused our attention on two important aspects of online gaming. The first aspect was the question what distinguishes games of skill from games of chance. This question has important legal and regulatory implications since in many jurisdictions games of chance are prohibited or tightly regulated. Legislators or courts often consider a game as legal if the skill content is more than 50%. However, no generally accepted measure exists that would allow to measure the content of skill versus chance. We were successful in creating a new measure, the best-fit ELO rating, which is applicable to all games. We have obtained large data sets from leading providers of various online games and use them to compare the degree of skill and chance of different games empirically. Our approach attempts to capture the heterogeneity of players' abilities. First results indicate that poker fails to pass the 50% reference point for skill and is therefore closer to a game of chance. In the proposed extension period we will build on these foundations and finish this work (and PhD student Marco Lambrecht his dissertation) by classifying other games, extending the analysis to multi-player games and sports, and performing various robustness checks.The second aspect dealt with dynamic aspects of gaming, including problem gambling and rational choice. Our focus is specifically on the hot hand fallacy and chasing after losses. We have formulated corresponding hypothesis, cleaned the data set and performed preliminary analyses on the continuation behavior of online players. During the requested extension, we intend to investigate on changes in risk taking behavior and categorize players by individual indicators in order to establish markers of addiction. In addition, we will run a laboratory experiment, which should help us to distinguish the phenomena of chasing after losses from the gambler's fallacy. From empirical data, this difference cannot be observed.