Casino Banking game

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stone
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Casino Banking game

Post by stone »

People enjoy playing Monopoly. "Casino Banking" is in the media a lot but what it is is fairly mysterious. Would it lend its self to being the subject of a family game like Monopoly? Might that help people understand what they are all paying to bail out? I've drafted an attempt at making such a game. Does it seem fun and easy to play? Is it realistic?
This game allows each player to experience the thrill and pride of being at the helm of a global systemically important financial institution. The aim of the game is to gather remuneration. Whoever has been remunerated the most by the end of play wins. With each round of the game, you are remunerated with 20% of any profit your bank makes. If your bank makes a loss you don’t get any remuneration that round.

Each player gets a bank with £1B as capital. Each bank can hold (in whatever proportions you choose) cash (which keeps a constant nominal value and gives no income), stocks (which vary in price and income per share), treasuries (which give a constant 10p income per share but vary in price) and commodities (which vary in price per share and give no income). For each round of the game, each player decides what to hold and the three dice are thrown, each determining the performance of an asset class. At the start of play, each share costs £1 but during the course of play that price will meander around accumulating the consequences of the dice throws.

dice throw treasuries               stocks                               commodities
1             x3/2  10p inc               x2  30p inc                         x4
2               x5/4  10p inc             x2  20p inc                         x3
3             x6/5  10p inc             x2  10p inc                         x2
4             x5/6  10p inc             x3/2                                        x1/2
5               x4/5  10p inc               x2/3                                       x1/3
6               x2/3  10p inc             x1/8                                        x1/4

As a bank, you may make loans to your fellow banks for them to further speculate in such financial assets. You may not make loans to yourself. Loans are for five rounds of the game with 20% of the principle being repaid after each round along with any interest. The fixed interest rate for the full term of the loan is determined at the start of the round before players decide whether to make loans and how to allocate their asset holdings. Two dice are thrown and the interest rate is the resulting score between 2% and 12%.

Each bank must hold net assets of 4% the value of the total assets it holds (ie 4% capital ratio). So (loans+cash+treasuries+stocks+commodities)/(loans+cash+treasuries+stocks+commodities-loans owing) must always be more than 25x. If your capital ratio falls below 4%, then your assets get distributed to your creditors in proportion to the amount owed. 

If an insolvent bank has run up debts that have no hope of being serviced, then rather than writing those debts down, a bailout may be deemed appropriate for creditors who have made political campaign contributions at the start of that round. If a £100M contribution has been made, then a coin will be tossed and if it is heads, then that creditor will get the full amount owed. If a £200M contribution has been made, then two coins will be tossed and if either is heads then that creditor will get the full amount owed and so on with larger contributions.

Example of play:

The dice are thrown to determine the interest rate as 5%.

Bank1 makes a £10B loan to bank2 and bank2 makes a £5B loan to bank1.

Bank1 buys 4B shares of treasuries, 1B shares of stocks and 1B shares of commodities.

Bank2 buys 5B shares of treasuries, 3B shares of stocks and 3B shares of commodities.

The dice are thrown as: 1 for treasuries, 6 for stocks and 1 for commodities.

Bank1’s holdings consequently are valued as:
3/2x £4B= £6B for treasuries
1/8x£1B=£125M for stocks
4x£1B=£4B for commodities
giving £10.125B in total.
Bank1 also receives £500M in interest from its loan and £400M as income from its treasuries. Bank1 repays £1B of loan principle and £250M in loan interest leaving
£10.125B+£500M+£400M-£1B-£250M=£9.775B. Bank1 still owes £4B so the increase in net assets is £9.775B-£4B-£1B=£4.775B so £955M is taken as remuneration, leaving £4.82B of capital to be deployed for the next round.

Bank2’s holdings consequently are valued as:
3/2x £5B=£7.5B for treasuries
1/8x £3B=£350M for stocks
4x£3B=£12B for commodities
giving £19.85B in total
Bank2 also receives £250M in interest from its loan and £500M as income from its treasuries. Bank1 repays £2B of loan principle and £500M in loan interest leaving
£19.85B+£250M+£500M-£2B-£500M=£18.1B. Bank2 still owes £8B so the increase in net assets is £18.1B-£8B-£1B=£9.1B so £1.82B is taken as remuneration, leaving £8.28B of capital to be deployed for the next round.

Going into the next round, the price per share is now £1.50 for treasuries, 12.5p for stocks and £4 for commodities.
                                         
Last edited by stone on Sat Aug 18, 2012 1:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." - Mulla Nasrudin
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