Modeling Situation 4: Fair Games

Prepared by:

Joseph Malkevitch
Department of Mathematics
York College (CUNY)
Jamaica, New York 11451

email: 

malkevitch@york.cuny.edu

web page: 

http://york.cuny.edu/~malk/

1. Two players Row and Column play a game many times where each player independently and similtaneously choose one of two rows (for Row) or one of two columns (for Column) and get the payoff shown in the table (matrix) below:

The payoffs are written from Row's point of view. Thus, the entry "5" means Row receives 5 units of payoff and Column loses 5 units while the entry of -2 means that Row loses 2 units and Column gains 2 units.

1. Does Row or Column have an advantage this game is played over and over again, or is the game "fair" in the sense that in the long run the winnings and losses of the two players is about the same?