The Game of OligarchyInternet Archive founder and and game designer Brewster Kahle has invented a coin-flip economic simulation game which he calls The Game of Oligarchy. The rules are simple:

* Each gets a pad of paper and pen and writes $100 at the top, that is their pot of money
* Each gets a coin to flip
* Then each player picks another player agrees to gamble on a flip of a coin, they agree on which wins on heads, and tosses. The stake of the gamble is set at 50% of the lesser of the pots of that pair. So in the beginning, when everyone has $100, the gamble is $50.
* Then the players pick another player (or the same player) to do another round. This proceeds.

“What is amazing is that even through each toss is “fair” in that it is a 50-50 chance to win a straight amount of money, the results shows one player wins all the money, and really quickly.”

The Game of Oligarchy

Online automated implementation of The Game of Oligarchy by Neal Krawetz

Via Boing Boing: The Oligarch Game: use coin-tosses to demonstrate “winner take all” and its power to warp perceptions

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