Here's How to Use Game Theory to Win Your Yankee Swap
If your idea of winning a white elephant/Yankee swap/dirty Santa gift exchange is bringing the gift that everyone wants, well, this isn't for you. Ben over at FiveThirtyEight shows you how to use math and averages to get the best gift for yourself.
Game theory, when applied to Yankee swaps, goes like this: assign each opened gift a value, find the average value for all gifts opened, and if there's a gift with a value higher than that average available to steal, take it; otherwise, open a gift.
See a video and the full explanation over on FiveThirtyEight:
