
500K bet on rock paper scissors ruled invalid by Quebec court - danso
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/500-k-bet-on-rock-paper-scissors-1.5543533
======
flyGuyOnTheSly
>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 though and took out the mortgage on his house!

My friends would try every angle to weasel their way out of a $100 light
hearted bet!

~~~
ramblerman
> 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.

~~~
crazygringo
You're factually wrong.

Judges very much, all the time, deem whether a contract is exploitative or
not. Valid contracts are signed between two parties where both are very much
aware of what they're doing and fall within non-exploitative bounds.

You're not allowed to contract yourself into slavery no matter how much you
want to. Indentured servitude is similarly illegal. You also can't charge
someone a billion percent interest on a payday loan.

Now, granted, some people see the absurd levels of modern student debt as
something not so far off from indentured servitude. But the point is that the
government and judges _absolutely_ draw lines between which contracts are
permitted and not, for the _express_ reason of protecting people from being
led into terrible mistakes no matter how much they may want to. Kind of the
same thinking behind certain drugs being illegal: the government trying to
protect people from their worst impulses.

Of course, libertarians (as opposed to liberals and conservatives) think
people should be able to contract whatever they want, hence the "liberty" in
their name. But pretty much everyone else on the political spectrum thinks
it's pretty essential to protect people from the absolute worst irrevocable
things.

~~~
tomp
How can a contract that gives both parties equal chances of winning equal
amounts of money be exploitative?

~~~
thisiszilff
The loser is exploited. Imagine if the losing condition were that the loser is
enslaved. Just because you can't tell at the start which party will be the
loser (and so exploited) doesn't mean the contract itself isn't exploitative

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jameslk
I'm interested in the backstory. How do two people decide to wager such
amounts of money over rock paper scissors? Like were they bored or was there
some serious reason such a casual game was chosen over a serious amount of
money? Clearly the loser couldn't easily afford the amount they were wagering
since he had to take out debt for it, which makes it even more confusing why
this seemed like a prudent decision.

~~~
michaelcampbell
Because money has marginal value, and they seem to have lots of it.

~~~
renewiltord
That can't be it because he took out a mortgage on his house!

~~~
erichdongubler
You can have the money and still decide that you can beat the interest from
mortgage with another investment, i.e., stocks. So, that's not necessarily
indicative of a financial standing. :)

------
huhtenberg
> _the game also involves a large part of chance_

I can't find the source right now, but I remember reading about a court case
centered around whether Bridge (the card game) is gambling or not due to the
influence of chance on its outcome. It was settled by holding a string of
games that pitched players with varying experience against each other and the
outcome was that better skilled ones _always_ prevailed. And so the Bridge was
ruled to be a game of skill.

~~~
CydeWeys
Bridge is unfortunately rife with cheating at the highest levels. It's simply
too easy to communicate information with your partner that you're not allowed
to through subtle signals, and this is very hard to police except at the macro
level using a statistical analysis of many games to determine if it seems like
players are acting on more information than they should have. The only way to
play Bridge without cheating is to isolate each player in a separate room,
confiscate all electronics, and have them play on provided computers running
electronic Bridge that only transmits bids and cards played. So never bet on
Bridge.

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-
cheating-p...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-cheating-
problem-in-professional-bridge/amp)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> The only way to play Bridge without cheating is to isolate each player in a
> separate room, confiscate all electronics, and have them play on provided
> computers running electronic Bridge that only transmits bids and cards
> played.

You'll still have "cheating" in this scenario. The rules of bridge consider it
to be cheating if partners have a bidding convention that they don't explain
to the other team. It's stupid, but those are the official rules.

~~~
CydeWeys
Oof. The game itself just doesn't lend itself to fair competitive play owing
to its very nature. It's like how the overhead press was removed as a
powerlifting lift in competition: It's just not possible to judge fairly (too
easy to cheat using your legs).

~~~
vl
This I don’t agree with: they should have left it as leg-assisted overhead
press. So what that you helped with your back and legs? It’s a full-body
activity anyway.

~~~
CydeWeys
There already is a "leg-assisted overhead press" widely seen in competition --
the jerk. Except you see it in Olympic lifting, not powerlifting, and it's
generally not done on its own, but as part of the clean and jerk. The snatch
is another form of leg-assisted overhead press.

So if that's what you're into ... take up Olympic lifting!

~~~
vl
There is no element of overhead press in snatch. In jerk feet are moving. I
think it would be beneficial to have third exercise where the final motion is
overhead press after pause and feet are not allowed to move.

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dghughes
Many times here in Canada when there are contests you often see (always
really) "void in Quebec". It's like a Canadian Heritage Moment.

~~~
alricb
That's because of the _Act respecting lotteries, publicity contests and
amusement machines_ , art. 58 and following:
[http://legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/showdoc/cs/L-6?langCont=fr#...](http://legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/showdoc/cs/L-6?langCont=fr#se:58)

------
bagpuss
in 2005, Rock Paper Scissors was used to decide who was to sell $20m of art;
Sotheby’s or Christie’s

[https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-christies-
soth...](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-christies-sothebys-
played-rock-paper-scissors-20-million-consignment)

------
codegladiator
> In the 2017 judgment, Superior Court Justice Chantal Chatelain found that
> rock paper scissors is not simply a game of luck.

> the sense of observation or the putting in place of a strategic sequence

The court can ask him to defeat 10 other people in that game consistently to
prove that ? But then he could argue the others were also skilled ?

~~~
tapland
A nontrivial fraction of people form their selection when _starting to_ move
their hand down the final time. It's very much possible to counter that.

~~~
gruez
Isn't that cheating?

~~~
paulcole
If your opponent is playing poorly, it’s unethical not to take advantage.

~~~
IggleSniggle
Hard disagree. Better games make affordances for players of differing skill
level (like Go for example), but in games where this is not possible, the
ethical calculation is more complex (although I would argue the ethical
calculation isn't really relevant in a game, as the whole point of most games
is about creating a safe place for the mutual exploration of systems).

Whether or not the specific examples constitutes cheating is up for
negotiation by the participants.

~~~
paulcole
> as the whole point of most games is about creating a safe place for the
> mutual exploration of systems

What?

Can you imagine saying to any reasonable person, “do you want to create a safe
place for the mutual exploration of systems?” And having them reply, “oh yeah,
I would like to play a game.”

~~~
jakear
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.

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im3w1l
Heads I win, tails you pay my lawyers.

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sircastor
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?

~~~
ta1771
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.

~~~
jldugger
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'?

------
Causality1
It seems illogical to me that a flippant statement can be legally binding in
some circumstances but not others.

------
surround
The ruling seems to have a lot of ambiguity. At what point does a game of
skill become a game of chance? What amount of money is considered “excessive?”

Is such ambiguity normal for court rulings? (Genuine question - I’m not super
familiar with legal stuff)

------
smabie
I need to move to Quebec so I can get out of some bad futures trades!

------
Hydraulix989
Is RPS a game of skill?

~~~
throw0101a
> _Is RPS a game of skill?_

If you do a 2/3, or 3/5, etc, then maybe. Numberphile did an episode on how
you're more likely to win by following a particular strategy:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rudzYPHuewc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rudzYPHuewc)

Presumably this works best if the other person is not following the same
strategy. The paper that they reference (PDF):

* [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.5199v1.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.5199v1.pdf)

~~~
quickthrower2
I just watched that video. Fascinating. Of course it means if the other person
is playing the strategy, then you want to play the strategy to beat that
strategy, which is just as simple. But if they realise you are doing that they
might switch to the one that beats the one that beats the one. I guess it gets
a bit like poker where you are trying to appear "loose" then suddenly play
tight or whatever.

I was wondering how a human can generate random numbers while playing. One way
could be if you can hear your heart beat, the number of beats between plays
mod 3 would allow you to play randomly enough to throw off your opponents
strategy.

You could also memorise a recently generate sequence of random numbers!

~~~
cesarb
> Of course it means if the other person is playing the strategy, then you
> want to play the strategy to beat that strategy, which is just as simple.
> But if they realise you are doing that they might switch to the one that
> beats the one that beats the one.

Reminds me of Iocaine Powder:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100131080653/http://ofb.net/~e...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100131080653/http://ofb.net/~egnor/iocaine.html)

~~~
kentonv
My favorite entry in that competition was Fork Bot.

The contestants were written in C, you see, and all rounds of play executed in
the same process. Obviously there's all kinds of ways you could cheat in this
environment but Fork Bot struck me as especially clever.

Fork Bot, on its turn, would fork() twice and return a different move in each
of the three resulting processes. On its next turn, it would look back to the
previous turn and see if it won. If not, it would exit(). So only the process
where it won every round would survive...

Though, it ran into a problem with one of the other cheaters: "Unfortunately,
since all three moves lost to the Psychic Friends Network after the first
turn, the program exited and the remainder of that match was declared
forfeited."

[http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/rsb-
results2.html](http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/rsb-results2.html)

------
roenxi
This article is so stupid I assume there is fraud involved somewhere; or at
least a lot more to the story than mentioned.

~~~
elwell
You have to wonder if Rock, Paper, Scissors is a front for some other
wager/deal they had to settle. E.g., a large bitcoin transaction, a drug deal,
idk. Since they wanted it notarized, they had to change the face of it.

------
paulgb
They should have added a skill-testing question to the contest!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill_testing_question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill_testing_question)

I think these are my favourite legal loophole. I even remember teachers using
them as examples in elementary math classes.

Edit: this is tongue in cheek, not legal advice

~~~
cowpig
The article says RPS was ruled a game of skill, but the wager was ruled
invalid because the amount was excessive.

~~~
code_duck
It says that while it is considered partially based on skill, it has a large
element of chance. It seems likely they would have invalidated it based on
that alone.

