Volume 13, Number 06, March 2023

Markov Chains Applied to Parrondo’s Paradox: The Coin Tossing Problem

  Authors

Xavier Molinero¹ and Camille Mégnien², ¹Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTECH, Spain, ²Spain

  Abstract

Parrondo’s paradox was introduced by Juan Parrondo in 1996. In game theory, this paradox is described as: A combination of losing strategies becomes a winning strategy. At first glance, this paradox is quite surprising, but we can easily explain it by using simulations and mathematical arguments. Indeed, we first consider some examples with the Parrondo’s paradox and, using the software R, we simulate one of them, the coin tossing. Actually, we see that specific combinations of losing games become a winning game. Moreover, even a random combination of these two losing games leads to a winning game. Later, we introduce the major definitions and theorems over Markov chains to study our Parrondo’s paradox applied to the coin tossing problem. In particular, we represent our Parrondo’s game as a Markov chain and we find its stationary distribution. In that way, we exhibit that our combination of two losing games is truly a winning combination. We also deliberate possible applications of the paradox in some fields such as ecology, biology, finance or reliability theory.

  Keywords

Parrondo’s paradox, Markov chain, Engineering Decision Making, Maintenance and Evolution