Other Ways to Win an Office White Elephant Exchange Besides FiveThirtyEight’s Game Theory Model

You might have recently read FiveThirtyEight’s The Ultimate Guide To Winning Your White Elephant Gift Exchange Using Game Theory.

Here are the game theory rules, as FiveThirtyEight’s Ben Casselman explains:

1. As each gift is opened, mentally assign it a value (perhaps a dollar value or a 1-to-5 ranking);

2. When it’s your turn, average the value of all the opened gifts (whether or not they’re available for stealing);

3. If there is a stealable gift “worth” at least as much as the average, steal it! Otherwise, open a gift. (Depending on the rules you’re playing by, not every gift might be available for stealing.)

But we at The Billfold understand that there is more than one way to define winning. Do you really want to be the person who’s always grabbing at the most valuable gift? Of course not. So, instead of being one of the ten people in your office simultaneously playing the Game Theory model, consider playing one of these alternate games instead:

As each coworker enters the room, mentally assign them a value. When it’s your turn, steal from the coworker you dislike the most, no matter the gift.

Decide to contribute the gift with the lowest value. Use attractive packaging and strategic positioning to encourage your coworkers to choose it early in the game. You’ll know you’ve won if nobody tries to steal the gift.

Understand that your most successful coworkers tend to end up with higher valued gifts, either because they have the intuitive skills to pick the correct wrapped package or the social skills to steal high-value gifts while still making the whole game seem like fun. At the end of the game, rate the value of your gift against your peers’. If you are below the average, consider taking a professional development course. If you have the lowest-valued gift, consider looking for a new job.

If you are new to the office, accept that your role is to end up with one of the lowest valued gifts in the game. You win if more than five people address you by the correct name.

If you are somebody’s assistant, you win if the person you assist receives the highest valued gift in the game. How are you going to make that happen? A good assistant will already know.

If you have a crush on one of your coworkers, you win if they steal from you. You also win if they talk to you, offer you a glass of punch, look in your direction for more than four sustained seconds, or touch their hair after meeting your eyes. Additionally, you win if they do not look in your direction, do not talk to you, and turn their body away from you—because now you know they aren’t interested and you can stop trying to make your office romance happen. Seriously. You’re crossing the line into creepy here.

Create a private Slack where you and three other coworkers arrange to buy each other thoughtful gifts—or at least useful ones, like Starbucks gift cards. Share photos of the wrapped gifts so you know what they look like. Work together to ensure that the four of you end up with all four gifts. (This is most easily accomplished if your office doesn’t have a limit on the number of swaps each gift can receive, and if you can all arrange to select or steal your gifts at the end. If your office does limit the swaps, you’ll have to do a little more math to figure out where to position yourselves in the line.)

Literally steal somebody’s gift. Pick up their gift bag and put yours down in its place. You win if nobody notices.

Figure out who in the room is using the FiveThirtyEight game theory model. Steal from them.

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