Middle Value Gambling Game

[RocketManJames]

Here's a stupid game that showed up in a dream last night. In the dream I lost a lot of money. Anyway, would you play this game, and how do you play it?

You go up against two opponents. Each of you secretly writes down a dollar figure. The one with the middle value wins the values specified by the high and the low.

If you wrote down $100. And, the other two guys wrote down $25 and $500, then you won $525. The low guy pays you $25 and the high guy pays you $500.

In the rare event that two people write the same value, then the person with the different value wins. If all three write down the same value, it's a push.

Assume there is no collusion and that you and your two opponents know nothing about each another.

Stupid game, but curious how you'd play it. If anyone writes down a value of $0 then this is effectively a no-play, and no one wins.

-RMJ

[DCJ311]

The game essentially devolves into some kind of a Prisoner's Dilemma where you have to punish people who are betting $1 each time ($0 should not be an option IMO). Randomly betting anywhere from $1-5 depending on what your opponents are doing seems like a decent way to go.