IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17023.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Role of Skill Versus Luck in Poker: Evidence from the World Series of Poker

Author

Listed:
  • Steven D. Levitt
  • Thomas J. Miles

Abstract

In determining the legality of online poker - a multibillion dollar industry - courts have relied heavily on the issue of whether or not poker is a game of skill. Using newly available data, we analyze that question by examining the performance in the 2010 World Series of Poker of a group of poker players identified as being highly skilled prior to the start of the events. Those players identified a priori as being highly skilled achieved an average return on investment of over 30 percent, compared to a -15 percent for all other players. This large gap in returns is strong evidence in support of the idea that poker is a game of skill.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven D. Levitt & Thomas J. Miles, 2011. "The Role of Skill Versus Luck in Poker: Evidence from the World Series of Poker," NBER Working Papers 17023, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17023
    Note: LE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17023.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicolas P. B. Bollen, 2005. "Short-Term Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 569-597.
    2. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sumit Sarkar & Sooraj Kamath, 2023. "Does luck play a role in the determination of the rank positions in football leagues? A study of Europe’s ‘big five’," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(1), pages 245-260, June.
    2. McFall, Todd & Rotthoff, Kurt W., 2020. "Risk-taking dynamics in tournaments: Evidence from professional golf," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 378-394.
    3. Duersch, Peter & Lambrecht, Marco & Oechssler, Joerg, 2020. "Measuring skill and chance in games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    4. Mikołaj Czajkowski, 2015. "Poker - a game of luck or skills. Review of theoretical and empirical studies and conclusions for law regulations," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 40.
    5. Hergueux, Jerome & Smagghue, Gabriel, 2023. "The dominance of skill in online poker," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    6. Agam Gupta & Yash Khandelwal & Manish K. Singh & Ashutosh Singla, 2022. "Do fantasy sports players' actions influence their performance in Dream11 contests? Adding data to the debate on skill vs chance," Working Papers 17, xKDR.
    7. Brian M. Mills & Dae Hee Kwak & Joon Sung Lee & Woo-Young Lee, 2014. "Competitive environments in fantasy sports gaming: effects of entry fees and rewards on opposition quality and league sorting," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 161-180, August.
    8. Eil, David & Lien, Jaimie W., 2014. "Staying ahead and getting even: Risk attitudes of experienced poker players," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 50-69.
    9. Ben van der Genugten & Peter Borm, 2016. "Texas Hold’em: A Game of Skill," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(03), pages 1-13, September.
    10. Rogier J D Potter van Loon & Martijn J van den Assem & Dennie van Dolder, 2015. "Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-23, March.
    11. Madonia, Greg & Smith, Austin C., 2019. "All-In or checked-out? Disincentives and selection in income share agreements," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 52-67.
    12. Jussi Palomäki & Michael Laakasuo & Mikko Salmela, 2013. "'This is just so unfair!': A qualitative analysis of loss-induced emotions and tilting in on-line poker," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 255-270, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Basak, Suleyman & Makarov, Dmitry, 2012. "Difference in interim performance and risk taking with short-sale constraints," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 377-392.
    2. Nanda, Vikram K. & Wang, Z. Jay & Zheng, Lu, 2009. "The ABCs of mutual funds: On the introduction of multiple share classes," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 329-361, July.
    3. Amparo Soler Domínguez & Juan Carlos Matallín Sáez & Emili Tortosa Ausina, 2011. "On the informativeness of persistence for mutual funds' performance evaluation using partial frontiers," Working Papers. Serie EC 2011-08, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    4. Herrmann, Ulf & Rohleder, Martin & Scholz, Hendrik, 2016. "Does style-shifting activity predict performance? Evidence from equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 112-130.
    5. Ying-Fen Fu, 2014. "Individual Fund Manager Sentiment, Fund Performance and Performance Persistence," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 4(4), pages 870-885.
    6. Omneya Abdelsalam & Meryem Duygun & Juan Carlos Matallín-Sáez & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2014. "Is Ethical Money Sensitive to Past Returns? The Case of Portfolio Constraints and Persistence of Islamic and Socially Responsible Funds," Working Papers 2014/19, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    7. Zhang, Jinhua & Wang, Guipu & Yan, Cheng, 2020. "Can foreign equity funds outperform their benchmarks? New evidence from fund-holding data for China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 11-20.
    8. Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lien, Donald & Kuo, Ming-Sin, 2020. "Window dressing in equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 338-354.
    9. Manuel Ammann & Michael Steiner, 2008. "Risk Factors for the Swiss Stock Market," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 144(I), pages 1-35, March.
    10. Grose, Chris & Dasilas, Apostolos & Alexakis, Christos, 2014. "Performance persistence in fixed interest funds: With an eye on the post-debt crisis period," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 155-182.
    11. Alda, Mercedes & Andreu, Laura & Sarto, José Luis, 2017. "Learning about individual managers’ performance in UK pension funds: The importance of specialization," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 654-667.
    12. Fabian Irek, & Jan Jaap Hazenberg & Willem van der Scheer & Mariela Stefanova, 2013. "The Lure of the Brand: Evidence from the European Mutual Fund Industry," LSF Research Working Paper Series 13-8, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
    13. Angelidis, Timotheos & Giamouridis, Daniel & Tessaromatis, Nikolaos, 2013. "Revisiting mutual fund performance evaluation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1759-1776.
    14. Dariusz Filip, 2011. "Performance Persistence of Equity Funds in Hungary," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 5(1), March.
    15. Zia-ur-Rehman Rao & Tanveer Ahsan & Muhammad Zubair Tauni & Muhammad Umar, 2018. "Performance and Persistence in Performance of Actively Managed Chinese Equity Funds," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 16(3), pages 727-747, September.
    16. Berkowitz, Jason P. & Schorno, Patrick J. & Shapiro, Dmitry A., 2017. "Characteristics of mutual funds with extreme performance," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 50-60.
    17. Qin Lei & Murli Rajan & Xuewu Wang, 2012. "An empirical analysis of corporate insiders' trading performance," China Finance Review International, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 2(3), pages 246-264, June.
    18. Gallefoss, Kristoffer & Hansen, Helge Hoff & Haukaas, Eirik Solli & Molnár, Peter, 2015. "What daily data can tell us about mutual funds: Evidence from Norway," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 117-129.
    19. Gil-Bazo, Javier & Ruiz-Verdú, Pablo, 2008. "When cheaper is better: Fee determination in the market for equity mutual funds," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 871-885, September.
    20. Lemeunier, Sébastien Michel, 2021. "Information Asymmetry and the Mutual Fund Market," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 440-448.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17023. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.