Collective decision making and paradoxical games

Abstract

We study an ensemble of individuals playing the two games of the so-called Parrondo paradox. In our study, players are allowed to choose the game to be played by the whole ensemble in each turn. The choice cannot conform to the preferences of all the players and, consequently, they face a simple frustration phenomenon that requires some strategy to make a collective decision. We consider several such strategies and analyze how fluctuations can be used to improve the performance of the system.