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It’s quite easy to teach a chicken to play Tic Tac Toe, provided that you have the right equipment.

• Casino Chicken Tic Tac Toe Game
• Tic Tac Toe Games
• Chicken Tic Tac Toe Game
• Tic Tac Toe Strategy

All you need is a Skinner box, some flip-flops, steppers, timers and switches, and a little knowledge of basic game simulation.

Feb 07, 2011 She may well have been the last tic-tac-toe chicken at the arcade. (If you run a casino and would like to sponsor your own Tic-Tac-Toe Chicken Challenge, write to a guy named Bunky in Arkansas. He still trains his chickens using the Skinner method. If you just want to play a chicken, head to Foxwoods, where if you beat the chicken you win.

• That may not have been as hard as it may sound; you see, the chicken didn't really know how to play tic-tac-toe. The chicken psychiatrist trained the chicken to peck at a flashing light. The chicken psychiatrist trained the chicken to peck at a flashing light.
• 🐔 🐔 🐤 Chicken Tic-Tac-Toe Returns! 🐤 🐔 🐔 Did you know that we bring in a 'Chicken Wrangler' who specializes in chicken tic-tac-toe? It's a sight to see. And it starts September 3rd at Wildwood Casino in Cripple Creek. Visit the Players Club for info and rules.

Some casino’s offer a “chicken challenge”, where suckers try to 'beat the bird:
Do you 'beat the chicken'?
I studied under Professor Emeritus Frank Logan, former chair of the Yale department of Psychology and one of the top behavioral scientists of the 20th century.
Frank taught me how to automate Skinner boxes, and once you know how to devise the learning tool, all you do is plop-in the chicken, and it learns to play toc-tac-toe all by itself.
One trick chicken
Because tic tac toe follows well-structured decision rules, Chickens can easily be trained to play simple games like tic tac toe using Skinner boxes and the principles of operant conditioning.
When broken-down into a flattened decision tree, tic tac toe strategy becomes so simple that a chicken can do it:
The decision rules of tic-tac-toe can be presented linearly

The electronics simulates game after game of tic-tac-toe, so that a chicken will sit through hundreds of games each day. When the chicken makes a correct answer they get a treat, a wrong answer produces no reward.
That’s all there is to it!
Tic Tac Toe is a fun game for young children because they have not learned that the decision rules are fixed, and therefore perceive tic tac toe as a game of skill.
Janet has trained many a trick chicken, including “Clucky” a chicken trained to sit on a broomstick!
Lots of people teach chickens to play tic tac toe and them plop them into roadside attractions, to amuse the tourists.
The trainers, being part B. F. Skinner and part P. T. Barnum, use hyperbole when explaining how a chicken is taught to play tic tac toe:
“With his many years of training and working with animals, Bunky has an eye for raw talent - and when he began working with Ginger, he saw something in her he hadn't seen before. The sparkle of stardom - and that's when he knew she was going to be a star!”
Here are a video of a chicken playing tic tac toe:
I have never seen this in person. Are the chickens allowed to act independently, or are the handlers actually directing the play?
Here is a Q/A describing the set up from Mark Pilarski's column in the Casino City Times:
'Dear Mark,
I'm not sure if my Uncle is pulling my leg, but he said that there is a casino that offers you the opportunity to play Tic-Tac-Toe against a chicken. I thought a chicken dinner bet was sufficient enough to prove him wrong. Do you mind dispelling his preposterous claim? Mary H.
While paying off your losing wager to your Uncle, Mary, you certainly won't be gobbling on Ginger, the chicken extraordinaire that two casinos that I know of have used to cook the goose of many intrepids who wanted to go up against a live chicken. They are the Tropicana in Atlantic City and the Trump 29 Casino in Palm Springs, not unknown Poultry Farms.
Furthermore, Mary, the ha-ha bettor is not playing against some dumb, clucking capon. Ginger, along with 14 other rotating hens (some of her understudies won't work either late-swing or graveyard shift) is well educated, reward-trained, that is, using methods popularized by psychologist B.F. Skinner, at the Boger Chicken University in Springdale, Arkansas.
Known as the 'Tic-Tac-Toe Chicken Challenge,' this specific tic-tac-toe match-up has casino patrons challenging a chicken in Tic-Tac-Toe for $10,000. The object of the game remains the same as what we all learned as kids: the first player to get three marks in a row wins; but the house has a built-in advantage (they wouldn't have it any other way, of course) since the chicken always goes first. Another understated casino edge is that the chicken is probably smarter than a lot of people we all know.

Casino Chicken Tic Tac Toe Game

If you ever plan to join the line of daily contenders at either casino, if you don't mind, Mary, the historical odds will have me betting on the chicken. Ginger has played for more than three years at the Tropicana and has lost only five times.'I've seen this at the Global Gaming Expo and the Ramada in Laughlin. At the Ramada there was a gigantic line to play it.
There is a chicken in a booth that evidently pecks at a board to make his move. This board is unseen to the players, so you have to take it on faith that you're actually playing against the chicken. My guess is a simple program advises the chicken on where to move with a light on the square to peck.

Tic Tac Toe Games

I think I would disagree with Doc a bit on tic tac toe strategy. Two decent players will tie almost every time.

I think I would disagree with Doc a bit on tic tac toe strategy. Two decent players will tie almost every time.

Agreed, sort of. However, if you allow rules (1) and (2) from my earlier post, the advantage to one player is tremendous. I think it is plausible that even a chicken could be trained not to lose with that advantage. In other words, I do not automatically assume that the operators of the game are cheating by using a program as you suggest. Chickens aren't all that bright, but they do alter their behavior based on experience.
The original post notes the small number of historical losses by the chicken but avoids the topic of whether humans actually lose very often. In contrast to your 'decent' players, I suspect it would not be unusual for a naive player, perhaps a child relatively new to the game or a drunk adult, to lose some games and, of course, never win.

My guess is a simple program advises the chicken on where to move with a light on the square to peck.

This makes sense, as an operator directed mechanism would be open to collusion (player/operator, not player chicken...).

Chicken Tic Tac Toe Game

Tic Tac Toe Strategy

I've seen this at the Global Gaming Expo and the Ramada in Laughlin. At the Ramada there was a gigantic line to play it.
There is a chicken in a booth that evidently pecks at a board to make his move. This board is unseen to the players, so you have to take it on faith that you're actually playing against the chicken. My guess is a simple program advises the chicken on where to move with a light on the square to peck.
I think I would disagree with Doc a bit on tic tac toe strategy. Two decent players will tie almost every time.

Wizard is right here. This is such an illusion of chance. After the player selects his choice, the chicken gets to choose. A light pops up indicating on the board where the chicken is suppose to peck. You are not allowed to tap the glass to try to scare the chicken into tapping another square or you will be disqualified.