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Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker

A major issue in the widespread controversy about the legality of poker and the appropriate taxation of winnings is whether poker should be considered a game of skill or a game of chance. To inform this debate we present an analysis into the role of skill in the performance of online poker players,...

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Autores principales: Potter van Loon, Rogier J. D., van den Assem, Martijn J., van Dolder, Dennie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346402/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25729862
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115479
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author Potter van Loon, Rogier J. D.
van den Assem, Martijn J.
van Dolder, Dennie
author_facet Potter van Loon, Rogier J. D.
van den Assem, Martijn J.
van Dolder, Dennie
author_sort Potter van Loon, Rogier J. D.
collection PubMed
description A major issue in the widespread controversy about the legality of poker and the appropriate taxation of winnings is whether poker should be considered a game of skill or a game of chance. To inform this debate we present an analysis into the role of skill in the performance of online poker players, using a large database with hundreds of millions of player-hand observations from real money ring games at three different stakes levels. We find that players whose earlier profitability was in the top (bottom) deciles perform better (worse) and are substantially more likely to end up in the top (bottom) performance deciles of the following time period. Regression analyses of performance on historical performance and other skill-related proxies provide further evidence for persistence and predictability. Simulations point out that skill dominates chance when performance is measured over 1,500 or more hands of play.
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spelling pubmed-43464022015-03-17 Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker Potter van Loon, Rogier J. D. van den Assem, Martijn J. van Dolder, Dennie PLoS One Research Article A major issue in the widespread controversy about the legality of poker and the appropriate taxation of winnings is whether poker should be considered a game of skill or a game of chance. To inform this debate we present an analysis into the role of skill in the performance of online poker players, using a large database with hundreds of millions of player-hand observations from real money ring games at three different stakes levels. We find that players whose earlier profitability was in the top (bottom) deciles perform better (worse) and are substantially more likely to end up in the top (bottom) performance deciles of the following time period. Regression analyses of performance on historical performance and other skill-related proxies provide further evidence for persistence and predictability. Simulations point out that skill dominates chance when performance is measured over 1,500 or more hands of play. Public Library of Science 2015-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4346402/ /pubmed/25729862 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115479 Text en © 2015 Potter van Loon et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Potter van Loon, Rogier J. D.
van den Assem, Martijn J.
van Dolder, Dennie
Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker
title Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker
title_full Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker
title_fullStr Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker
title_full_unstemmed Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker
title_short Beyond Chance? The Persistence of Performance in Online Poker
title_sort beyond chance? the persistence of performance in online poker
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346402/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25729862
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115479
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