Game theory: Losing strategies can win by Parrondo's paradox

In a game of chess, pieces can sometimes be sacrificed in order to win the overall game. Similarly, engineers know that two unstable systems, if combined in the right way, can paradoxically become stable. But can two losing gambling games be set up such that, when they are played one after the other, they becoming winning? The answer is yes. This is a striking new result in game theory called Parrondo's paradox, after its discoverer, Juan Parrondo1, 2. Here we model this behaviour as a flashing ratchet3, in which winning results if play alternates randomly between two games.