Professionals Play Minimax

Abstract

The implications of the Minimax theorem are tested using natural data. The tests use a unique data set from penalty kicks in professional soccer games. In this natural setting experts play a one-shot two-person zero-sum game. The results of the tests are remarkably consistent with equilibrium play in every respect: (i) winning probabilities are statistically identical across strategies for players; (ii) players' choices are serially independent. The tests have substantial power to distinguish equilibrium play from disequilibrium alternatives. These results represent the first time that both implications of von Neumann's Minimax theorem are supported under natural conditions.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 329 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.