What is a zero-sum game?
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Five people bring $20 each to the poker table. No matter who wins and who loses, $100 enters the table and $100 goes home with the winner(s). Value at the end of the night minus value at the beginning of the night equals zero, a zero sum game. If one person wins it’s because another person loses.
Now imagine three people, one with bread, one with peanut butter, one with jelly. Each is unhappy with their lunch prospects. They decide to make three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Even if the peanut butter cost more than the jelly, all three of them have benefitted from the arrangement. This is *not* a zero sum game.
All commerce, all the way back to prehistoric barter networks, is based on the idea that you can find an arrangement where ALL parties leave the table better off than how they started.
Any wins have to be matched to a loss…so if you win 5 dollars, someone else must’ve lost 5 dollars…so the game remains at “zero” since no value was lost or gained in the game…just between the players.
There’s the definition which other’s have provided, and then there’s what people *mean* when they say it.
Basically when it’s brought up it basically just means that somebody *has* to lose, and there isn’t a scenario where both sides come out on top.
A zero sum game is when every time someone gains something, another person loses that same something. In other words there is a fixed amount.
In negotiation sometimes people think they need to trick or manipulate people to get what they want because they think they can only win if someone else looses. But skilled negotiators try to find a way where everyone is better off. A win-win situation is not zero sum because the total amount of “utility” is increased by cooperation.
In other words, in a zero sum game a pie is divided. In a non-zero sum game size of the pie can be increased (or decreased) so everyone gets more pie.
I always thought of it as betting in roulette. 5 on black, 5 on red. You *should* break even. No loss, no gain. EXCEPT if it lands on green.
A zero-sum game is a mathematical concept in game theory where one player’s gain is exactly balanced by the losses of the other player. In other words, in a zero-sum game, the total benefit among all players in the game is always zero, meaning that for every winner, there must be a loser.
Some common examples of zero-sum games include:
Chess: In chess, one player wins while the other player loses, meaning the total benefit of the game is zero.
Poker: In poker, one player wins while the other player(s) lose, meaning the total benefit of the game is zero.
Bitcoin: NEGATIVE SUM GAME, it used to be a zero sum until most transactions are on platforms which charges a transaction fee.
A contrasting example is the stock market, which can be a positive sum game, where all participants can benefit from the growth of the market from technological advances or economic growth.
If you’ve ever played the game Sorry, and after rounds of craziness, you and every other player end up going back to the same spots you started in
Zero sum is essentially when only one person wins and gets everything as opposed to a win-win scenario where each party wins something of value. It’s typically used as a ruse in the political arena to convince people that if you give to ‘cause a’ there is nothing left to give to ‘cause b’. Ie. if you fund Medicare there’s nothing left for social security when in fact this is untrue and funding either effects neither. When in fact funding one thing does not necessitate the taking from something else. It’s super common and used a lot in politics to muddy the waters. It’s also used emotionally. Ie. If you love 1 child ‘x amount’ that leaves nothing for other children. When in fact love is boundless. In gaming it denotes a play format in which one player takes everything such as in a poker match where there is only one winner.
Any wins have to be matched to a loss…so if you win 5 dollars, someone else must’ve lost 5 dollars…so the game remains at “zero” since no value was lost or gained in the game…just between the players.
A zero-sum game is an activity where you can only win something by winning it from someone, and you can only lose something by losing it to someone. For example, poker is a zero-sum game, because every dollar you win was won from someone, and you can only lose money if someone wins it from you.
If you and a friend contribute seeds to sowing on a farm and then split the harvest at the end of the season, that’s a positive-sum game because you both ended up better off without taking your gains from someone. If you and a friend take turns hitting each other with sticks, that’s a negative-sum game because you both end up worse-off without having improved anyone’s situation.
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