A New Relative Skill Measure for Games with Chance Elements

Abstract

An interesting aspect of games is the relative extent to which a player can positively influence his results by making appropriate strategic choices. This question is closely related to the issue of how to distinguish between games of skill and games of chance. The distinction between these two types of games is definitely interesting from a juridical point of view. Borm and Van der Genugten (2001) presented a method to measure the skill level of a game. In principle, their measure can serve as a juridical tool for the classification of games with respect to skill. In this paper we present a modification of the measure. The main difference is that this new definition does not automatically classify incomplete information games without chance moves as games of skill. We use a coin game and a simplified version of standard drawpoker as an illustration.games of skill;games of chance