How to win at games of chance

Let us now take a break from politics and pivot to the sort of topic that generates Authentic Engagement™ in the Creator Economy: Life hacks.

In this case, we are going to use data from recent YouGov polling to teach you how to prevail at games of chance. Or, at least, to offer insights into the at-times surprising ways in which Americans randomly choose a consistent response from a set of options.

For example, when you toss a coin it is as likely to land as heads as it is tails. But asked which option they would pick for a coin toss, Americans were about three times as likely to say heads.

This seems weird but, presented with the data, it probably shouldn’t. After all, heads is as good a guess as tails, statistically speaking, and it does generally come first when people are presented with the options. So heads is more popular.

This doesn’t really give you an advantage, of course. The outcome of a coin toss is up to the coin, as Anton Chigurh might remind us. Where the YouGov data might help tip the scales a bit more is in how people play Roshambo.

Asked to pick between rock, paper and scissors, almost half of those with an opinion pick rock — making paper the safer first play. Yet paper is also the least common choice in YouGov’s data.

This may again be a function of rock being first in the list. But a possible slight advantage is better than no advantage.

The most striking set of responses came when people were asked what number they would choose between 1 and 10, a large plurality pick 7.

It’s important to note that this was not posed as a situation in which one was trying to get closest to a secret number, in which case 5 would be the clear favorite. That said, my assumption was that 5 would be the choice, in part because I generally do the “pick between 1 and 10” when seeking to resolve disputes between my kids.

Perhaps you, as I was, are curious if there are any differences in these responses by age or (sigh) political party. Well, on the numbers one — no, not really.

There is a more noticeable difference on Roshambo, with Republicans and older Americans more likely than younger people and Democrats to pick rock.

One of the largest differences came in the coin toss, with younger Americans quite a bit more likely to choose tails than older people.

So there you go. When playing rock, paper, scissors, choose paper — particularly against a Republican. If you have to guess a number between 1 and 10, the odds are good that the other person picked 7. And if you are trying to win a coin toss? Uh, good luck, I guess.

Photo: Obama flips a coin at the start of the 2011 Army-Navy game. (National Archives)