Dying to Be Successful? Revisiting the Goldman Dilemma in the Age of Cycling Esports

A 2025 study surveying 366 online cycling esports racers examines whether the Goldman dilemma, a hypothetical choice between guaranteed athletic success and death within five years, remains a valid gauge of willingness to dope. The researchers replicate the classic scenario from Goldman's 1984 work, in which 52 percent of elite athletes reportedly accepted the performance-enhancing drug. In the esports sample, acceptance was dramatically lower, ranging from just 0.8 to 2.8 percent when death was the stated consequence, whether the reward was an Olympic gold medal or ten million dollars.

The most consequential finding emerges when the death threat is removed while the reward is retained. Acceptance rose to 9.9 percent for an Olympic medal and 28 percent for ten million dollars, a shift the authors interpret as a meaningful signal of doping risk, particularly as the International Olympic Committee prepares to launch its Olympic Esports Games. Such a result suggests that the mortality framing of the original dilemma may suppress responses that participants would otherwise give, and that stakeholders should not treat low acceptance under the death scenario as reassurance.

The authors conclude that the Goldman dilemma is either a fallacy or outdated as a measure of doping willingness, since its extreme framing appears to produce responses unrelated to real behavioral intentions. They nonetheless argue it retains some value for assessing athletes' general attitudes toward performance-enhancing drugs, provided the outcome structure is carefully chosen.

The study's scope centers on online cycling esports, a rapidly growing segment where governance and integrity frameworks remain underdeveloped. Its literature base connects classic doping research on Goldman's original sample with cycling's history of doping and a 2023 case in which a virtual cyclist tested positive for a real-world anabolic steroid, situating the inquiry within broader questions about whether performance-enhancement norms are emerging in digital racing.