A simple browser-based Multiplayer Wager Game for Strategy and Risk Analysis

Whether making decisions about personal finances, careers, or daily living, risk analysis and strategy are essential components of decision-making processes for each individual. Individuals can improve results and reduce negative effects by knowing their risk appetite, and strategic planning establishes long-term objectives and practical methods to attain them while taking these risks into account.

The structure of the game when played with 10 players (n=3). In round 1, five players with the lowest wagers are eliminated and the one with the highest wager of the round skips round 2, while the remaining four qualify for round 2. In round 2, the two players with the least wagers are eliminated, the player with the highest wager skips round 3, the remaining player joins round 3. In round 3, the player who qualified from round 2 and the player who skipped round 2 play against each other. The winner of round 3 plays against the the player who skipped round 3 in the 4th and final round. In the final round, the entire remaining balances of both the players are wagered and the player with the highest balance is announced the winner.

To allow individuals to get an idea of their risk appetite and analyze potential strategies, a simple multiplayer wager game is introduced. The game gathers several players into a room and pitches pairs of players against each other in a wager match, where one player from each pair can advance to successive rounds by placing a higher wager than their respective opponent. The objective is simple – win all the rounds of the game based by coming up with an optimal strategy to beat the opponent in every round.

For every $n$ such that $n \geq 3$ , the game parameters are:
$\text{Players}=2^{n}+2$
$\text{Rounds}=n + 1$

All the players in a game start with the same account balance. Every time a round of the game occurs, the person who placed the highest wager out of all the players in that round gets to skip the next round if the next round is not the last round of the game. This means half of the players are eliminated in every round and the other half advance to the next round, and the player with the highest wager of the round skips the next round and joins back in the successive round. The final round always contains exactly 2 players. In the final round, the entire remaining account balance is placed as the wager for both the players, and the player with the highest wager (or the highest remaining account balance) wins the game.

This is the home screen of the game after logging in. The user can create a game, or join existing games using the list on the right. The development was carried out in Angular and Flask, utilizing WebSockets for communication.

Apart from assessing risk and financial strategies, the game can also help understand the fundamental process of human decision making in various stakes and circumstances, under time pressure. Do try out the game and reach out to us with questions, suggestions, and feedback.

A simple browser-based Multiplayer Wager Game for Strategy and Risk Analysis

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