The Kelly Criterion And Utility Function Optimisation For Stochastic Binary Games: Submartingale And Supermartingale Regimes

TL;DR

This paper reformulates the Kelly Criterion within stochastic binary games, analyzing wealth dynamics through utility functions, martingale regimes, and entropy relations, providing new insights into optimal betting strategies and wealth variability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel utility function-based reformulation of the Kelly Criterion for stochastic binary games, linking it to martingale regimes and entropy concepts.

Findings

Kelly fraction optimizes expected log-wealth growth

Wealth follows submartingale or supermartingale regimes depending on parameters

Exponential growth of expected wealth at optimal betting fraction

Abstract

A reformulation of the Kelly Criterion is presented. Let $\mathfrak{G}$ be a generic stochastic Bernoulli binary game with outcomes $\mathscr{Z}(I)\in\lbrace -1,1\rbrace$ of N trials for $I=1...N$. The binomial probabilities are $\mathsf{P}(\mathscr{Z}(I)=1)=p$ and ${\mathsf{P}}(\mathscr{Z}(I)=-1)=q$ with $p+q=1$. For a fair game $p=q=\tfrac{1}{2}$ and for a biased game $p>q$. If $\mathscr{W}(0)$ is the initial wealth then at the $I^{th}$ trial one bets a fraction $\mathcal{F}$ so that the bet is $B(I)=\mathcal{F}\mathscr{W}(I-1)$. If one wagers $B(I)$ and wins one recovers the original wager plus $B(I)$ if $\mathscr{Z}(I)=+1$, or a loss of $B(I)$ if $\mathscr{Z}(I)=-1$. The wealth at the $N^{th}$ trial/bet for large $N$ is the random walk $\mathscr{W}(N)=\mathscr{W} (0)+\sum_{I=1}^{N}B(I)\mathscr{Z}(I)=\mathscr{W}(0)\prod_{I=1}^{N}(1+\mathcal{F}\mathscr{Z}(I))$ with expectation $\mathsf{E}[\mathscr{W}(N)]$. Defining a 'utility function' $\mathsf{U}(\mathcal{F},p)=\mathsf{E}[\log(\mathscr{W}(N)/\mathscr{W}(0))^{1/N}]$ then $\mathsf{U}(\mathcal{F},p)$ is optimised by the Kelly fraction $\mathcal{F}=\mathcal{F}_{K}=p-q=2p-1$, which is essentially a critical point of $\mathsf{U}(\mathcal{F},p)$. Also $\mathsf{U}(\mathcal{F}_{K},p)$ can be related to the Shannon entropy. If $[0,1]=[0,\mathcal{F}_{*})\bigcup [\mathcal{F}_{*}]\bigcup (\mathcal{F}_{*},1]$ with $\mathsf{U}(\mathcal{F}_{*},p)=0$ then $\mathsf{U}(\mathcal{F},p)>0, \forall\mathcal{F}\in[0,\mathcal{F}_{*})$ and $\mathscr{W}(N)$ is a submartingale for $p>1/2$; also $\mathsf{U}(\mathcal{F},p)<0,\forall \mathcal{F}\in(\mathcal{F}_{*},1]$, and $\mathscr{W}(\mathcal{F},p)$ is a supermartingale. Estimates are derived for variance and volatility $\mathsf{VAR}(\mathscr{W}(N))$ and $\sigma(\mathscr{W}(N))=\sqrt{\mathsf{VAR}(\mathscr{W}(N)})$. For large $N$ and $\mathcal{F}=\mathcal{F}_{K}$, $\mathsf{E}[\mathscr{W}(N)]$ grows exponentially.