Rock Paper Scissors
Choose your option
Play rock paper scissors online against the computer
Rock paper scissors is the world's quickest way to settle a disagreement — but it needs two people, and the other person is not always there. This page is the opponent that never gets tired: pick rock, paper or scissors, and the computer reveals its throw after a short countdown, exactly like the hand game. Every round ends with a clear win, lose or tie, so best-of-five arguments settle themselves.
It is a free rock paper scissors game with nothing to install and no account to create. The computer's throw is chosen at random only after you have locked in your choice, so it cannot peek — rock, paper and scissors each have an equal one-in-three chance, and the spinning wheel makes the reveal as tense as the hand game. Whether you grew up calling it rock paper scissors, paper scissors rock, or ro sham bo, the rules below are the same ones you already know.
How to play rock paper scissors
The whole game fits in three rules, which is why it has survived for two thousand years:
- Rock crushes scissors — rock wins.
- Scissors cut paper — scissors win.
- Paper covers rock — paper wins.
Both players throw at the same time, so nobody can react to the other. Matching throws are a tie and get replayed. Online, the countdown above does the job of the traditional "rock, paper, scissors, shoot!" chant — your choice is locked in before the computer's is revealed, just as a hand game locks both fists before the reveal.
How to win at rock paper scissors (the real research)
Against a truly random opponent like this one, no strategy beats the odds — every throw wins a third, loses a third and ties a third. But against people, rock paper scissors is not random at all, and scientists have measured exactly how. In 2014, researchers at Zhejiang University watched 360 students play 300 rounds each and found a pattern so reliable it has a name: win-stay, lose-shift. Winners tended to repeat the throw that just won; losers tended to switch to whatever would have beaten it.
That single finding hands you a real strategy for your next game against a human:
- If you just won, expect your opponent to switch to the throw that beats your last one — so play the throw that beats that.
- If you just lost, expect your opponent to repeat their winning throw — play the counter.
- Inexperienced players open with rock more often than anything else, so paper is the statistically smart first throw against a stranger.
- If you want to stay unpredictable, let something random choose for you — the random letter generator can stand in for a throw picker, which is precisely what tournament players train to avoid needing.
The maths: why ties happen a third of the time
There are nine possible combinations of two throws, and they split perfectly: three wins for you, three wins for the computer, three ties. That is why a single round proves nothing — over one round the result is just noise, so settle anything important over best of five. If you ever need a decision without the tie problem, the coin flip and the yes or no wheel always produce a winner.
Who invented rock paper scissors?
Nobody knows the inventor's name, but the trail is surprisingly long. The earliest clear ancestor is shoushiling, a hand game described in China during the Han dynasty, roughly two thousand years ago. The game travelled to Japan, where it became jan-ken — still played there constantly, from schoolyards to business disputes — and it was the Japanese version, with the familiar rock-paper-scissors cycle, that spread worldwide in the early twentieth century.
Along the way it picked up aliases. "Ro sham bo" (sometimes spelled rochambeau) is the American name, and "paper scissors rock" is common in Australia and New Zealand. It also grew a competitive scene: the World Rock Paper Scissors Association has run organised tournaments for decades, where the win-stay, lose-shift research above is less trivia and more training manual.
When to use it — and when not to
Rock paper scissors is perfect for two-person, zero-stakes decisions: who takes the first turn, who gets the window seat, whose film gets watched. It breaks down when more than two people are involved — ties multiply fast with three or more players. For group decisions, the wheel of names picks one person from any number, and the random team generator splits a whole group fairly in one spin.
Sources and further reading
The strategy findings above come from peer-reviewed research and the sport's governing body, linked so you can check our work: