Game Theory and Doping

Too simple. You're basically saying "given the opportunity to gain rents due to getting better, everyone would choose to do so."

Factor in the chance that the doper gets caught doping and the lost income that can lead to and you might have to lower the payoffs for doping. People who think they can get away with it and have a low chance of being caught (aka "idiots") will dope, and those who are afraid of the getting caught and all the social/monetary repercussions (aka "pussies") will not.

If the doper gets caught, the payoff is the same as losing.

You are assuming the potential doper gets some $ even though s/he might lose.

I would say in terms of discounted opportunity cost, that is incorrect. Athletes in the developing world get nothing unless they perform. Even in the developed world, they get next to nothing.

So the payoff for getting caught is the same as losing - zero. Doping is actually optimal - at least you have your prior earnings when you are caught.

If the athlete gets $10/year for being clean and competing, and $100/year when doping and winning (a very plausible ratio), then the only athletes who would not dope are those who are very young and talented i.e. at worst they have a chance of making $10yr for a while vs $100 for one year and then being caught.

If they think they can make it *1* season without being caught, however, then doping is clearly favorable (2*$100 = 20yrs of not doping).

It is not a one-time game but a 'repeated game' with not evenly spaced intervals such that the standard assumptions do not quite hold. The repeated game has different structure than you standard simple prisoner's dilemma. Also, having many different people also changes the dynamics.

Of course...it is sometimes referred to as an, "Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Game". In repeated games, the participants compare votes and can punish the defecting participants by defecting in the next round.

In this instance, the superior athlete would punish the doper by....doping. That is the only means by which the athlete can "defect" and thereby punish competitors.

We all agree that doping = defecting. And one cannot know if the other athlete is doping. So the incentive is....to dope.

this is cut and pasted from a Scientific American Article. Their solution made a lot of sense. Basically make the punishment for doping or being associated with doping such that the risk is no longer worth it. ie if you dope you are banned for life, your coach is banned for life, you pay back all the money you ever earned. also you need to pay better for being 10th so that winning isn't the only thing.

But just read the article it was linked on lets run 5 or 6 months ago and should still be pretty easy to find.

Which is why all the champions dope. It works. It pays to dope. Therefore, if you win championships you are either a remarkable freak of nature (physically, mentally, AND morally), or you are a doper. Pretty simple.

Agree - the incentives for not doping need to be increased (IAAF pays all accredited athletes who pass tests?), and costs of doping need to increase.

As the game stands now....there is no cost to doping. Players are HEAVILY incentivized to defect.

With reference to the original post: cooperation will not emerge under this scenario, as there is no incentive for the participant who would not win under 'even' circumstances to refrain from doping. In the scenario as you list it, the lesser talent always benefits from doping. Only the addition of a punishment for doping changes this.

The problem is having concatenated winning and doping.

The assumption "If I dope and he dopes, I win" skews the scenario in favor of doping for a strong yet insecure athlete who does not want to risk losing to a counterpart of lesser ability.

If you make winning the secondary payoff objective, and replace it with not-doping as primary, for an even game, it would make mathematical sense not to dope.

If I no-dope to run and he doesn't no-dope to run - I win

If I no-dope to run and he no-dopes to run - we both win

If I don't no-dope to run and he no-dopes to run - he wins

If neither no-dopes to run - we both win

letsgiveprizemoneytoathletesthatdontdope.com

That's the real game.

CORRECTINGIf neither no-dopes to run - we both LOSE

the point could be wrote:

The problem is having concatenated winning and doping.

The assumption "If I dope and he dopes, I win" skews the scenario in favor of doping for a strong yet insecure athlete who does not want to risk losing to a counterpart of lesser ability.

If you make winning the secondary payoff objective, and replace it with not-doping as primary, for an even game, it would make mathematical sense not to dope.

If I no-dope to run and he doesn't no-dope to run - I win

If I no-dope to run and he no-dopes to run - we both win

If I don't no-dope to run and he no-dopes to run - he wins

If neither no-dopes to run - we both win

letsgiveprizemoneytoathletesthatdontdope.com

That's the real game.

Winning athletes get paid. This won't change.

Its not about "insecurity". Its about getting paid. There are non-trivial outcomes. A Polish athlete I met who is in her late 30s, runs 3-4 marathons a year and has a 6yr little girl. She lives in a middle income EU country, but given the number of Poles in western Europe, there are clearly not too many opportunities in Poland vs elsewhere. So her family needs her to win. I am not saying she is a doper, but her running brings home the bacon.

If you wife and kids well being were at stake, you'd do some pretty drastic things at the workplace. This is no different.

Only in developed countries do athletes have the luxury of "ideals". The rest of the world is fairly pragmatic.

How about we legalize it??? There will always be more incentive to dope than there will be to catch the dopers, thus records will always be tainted. Lets put everyone on the same playing field and legalize it!!!!!

AC: thanks for the article. A very good read from a first-hand knowledge source.Off the grid: why did you not make any reference to the article which attempts to provide a bold, concrete solution, and chose to show only the pragmatic aspect of doping?That was unfair to the author.

AC wrote:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma

there was a post on this same topic on a doping website that was mentioned at lr.c today.

pretty much one of the guys said "i have a mortgage to pay and mouths to feed; therefore, i dope"