Rock Paper Scissors History: Where the Hand Game Really Comes From

Rock paper scissors needs no equipment, takes three seconds and gives each player the same chance, which is why it is still the go-to way to settle who goes first. Its history is a little murkier than the "2,000-year-old game" label suggests, but what can be traced runs from Ming-dynasty China through Japan to the rest of the world.

How old is it really?

The earliest known written mention comes from the Chinese writer Xie Zhaozhe, who lived in the late Ming dynasty, around 1600. In his book Wuzazu he describes a hand game called shoushiling and says it went back to the Han dynasty (206 BC to AD 220). That second-hand claim is where the "2,000 years" figure comes from. No Han-era source describing the game has been found, so the honest summary is that hand games of this kind were played in China by about 1600, and Xie believed they were much older.

Hand games built on the idea of three gestures that each beat one and lose to another were played in China, and from there they travelled to Japan.

Japan: frogs, slugs and snakes

In Japan these games became known as sansukumi-ken, roughly "the three who fear each other". The earliest version, mushi-ken, used a frog, a slug and a snake: the frog beats the slug, the slug beats the snake, and the snake beats the frog. Other versions used a fox, a village headman and a hunter.

The version with rock, paper and scissors is called jan-ken, and it took its modern form in Japan in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is still everywhere in Japanese daily life, from children choosing teams to adults deciding who takes on a chore, usually with the chant "jan, ken, pon".

How the game went global

As contact between Japan and the West grew, the game came with it. The paperfolding historian David Mitchell found it described in the American children's magazine St. Nicholas in July 1901, in an article called "Glimpses of Child Life in Japan". A 1906 description in The American Stationer explained the rules in one line: "The stone will smash the scissors, and the scissors will cut the paper, but the paper will wrap the stone." By the 1920s and 1930s it was turning up in newspapers in Britain, the US and Australia.

The game picked up many names on the way: rock paper scissors, paper scissors stone, and in parts of the US "roshambo". A popular story links roshambo to the French general Rochambeau, who fought in the American Revolutionary War, but there is no early evidence for that, and where the word really comes from is unclear.

When grown-ups let the game decide

A multi-million dollar art sale (2005). Takashi Hashiyama, president of the Japanese electronics company Maspro Denkoh, could not choose between Christie's and Sotheby's to sell the company's art collection, which included a Cézanne landscape expected to fetch up to $16 million. He asked them to play rock paper scissors, with each house writing its choice on paper. Christie's wrote scissors, Sotheby's wrote paper, and Christie's won the sale. The New York Times reported that a Christie's executive had asked his 11-year-old twin daughters for advice, and they suggested scissors.

A federal court order (2006). In Florida, two lawyers in an insurance case, Avista Management v. Wausau Underwriters, could not agree on where to hold a deposition, even though their offices were in the same building. Federal judge Gregory Presnell ordered them to settle it with one game of rock paper scissors, with the winner choosing the location. The order made news around the world as a pointed rebuke of the lawyers' squabbling, and the two sides agreed to play the game at an undisclosed location.

Is it really a game of chance?

In theory, yes. If both players pick each gesture one third of the time at random, neither can gain an edge, and every game is a fair 1-in-3 win, 1-in-3 loss and 1-in-3 draw. In practice people are bad at being random.

In a 2014 study published in Scientific Reports, Zhijian Wang, Bin Xu and Hai-Jun Zhou had 360 students at Zhejiang University play 300 rounds each in groups of six. The groups' choices did not behave like pure chance: they drifted in slow cycles, and individual players followed clear habits. Players who won tended to repeat their winning gesture, and players who lost were more likely to switch than to stay, mostly in one particular direction. That "win-stay, lose-shift" habit is something an alert opponent can use. We explain how in our rock paper scissors strategy guide.

Rock paper scissors in nature

The same three-way loop shows up in biology. In 1996 Barry Sinervo and Curt Lively described side-blotched lizards in California whose males come in three throat colours, each with its own mating strategy. Orange-throated males are aggressive and hold large territories, blue-throated males guard a single mate closely, and yellow-throated "sneaker" males slip in to mate with females in the big orange territories. Orange beats blue, blue beats yellow, and yellow beats orange, so the balance between the three shifts over the years like a slow game of rock paper scissors.

Using it to make decisions today

• Agree on the stakes before you play, so the loser cannot argue afterwards.
• Play best of three if a single game feels too abrupt for the decision.
• Throw on the same beat, for example on "scissors" or on "pon", so nobody can react to the other hand.
• For more than two people, play knockout rounds, or use a different method such as a wheel or a dice roll.

Playing alone or online? Our rock paper scissors game lets you play against the computer, which picks randomly and does not fall into human habits. For other ways to settle a choice, see how to make a decision when you can't decide.

Sources

• Mitchell, D. Paper, Scissors, Stone. The Public Paperfolding History Project
• Vogel, C. (2005, April 29). Rock, Paper, Payoff: Child's Play Wins Auction House an Art Sale. The New York Times
• Settling auction house feud was kid's stuff (2005, May 1). The Spokesman-Review
• "Rock, paper, scissors" order garners worldwide attention (2006). The Florida Bar News
• Wang, Z., Xu, B. and Zhou, H.-J. (2014). Social cycling and conditional responses in the Rock-Paper-Scissors game. Scientific Reports 4, 5830
• Sinervo, B. and Lively, C. M. (1996). The rock-paper-scissors game and the evolution of alternative male strategies. Nature 380, 240-243

FAQ

Where does rock paper scissors come from?

Its roots are in Chinese hand games. The rock, paper and scissors version, called jan-ken, took shape in Japan in the nineteenth century and spread to the West in the early twentieth century.

Is rock paper scissors 2,000 years old?

Possibly, but it cannot be proven. The earliest written mention is from around 1600, by Xie Zhaozhe, who claimed the game dated back to the Han dynasty.

Is rock paper scissors fair?

Yes, if both players choose at random, each has the same one-in-three chance to win. Real people fall into patterns, which a skilled opponent can exploit.

Has rock paper scissors ever decided something important?

Yes. In 2005 it decided whether Christie's or Sotheby's would sell a Japanese company's art collection, and in 2006 a US federal judge ordered two lawyers to use it to settle where a deposition would be held.