Tbh if I see black come up 32 times in a row I'm probably betting on black just because I'm gonna start getting suspicious this wheel has actually been biased towards black somehow and isn't as random as it's supposed to be. Is there such a thing as an inverse gamblers fallacy?
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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In a Bayesian sense this would be called updating your prior. You assume the wheel is truly random. After many observations that assumption seems not to hold so you adjust your prior probability that any given spin will land on black to be higher.
If you have good reason to believe it's a fair wheel, that's actually still just the gambler's fallacy.
If you have no exceptional reason to believe it's fair, it would be updating your priors, like the other commenter said.
Humans are bad at statistics and probability. We're naturally wired to find patterns and connections and make decisions quickly without needing to perform calculations. It works for simple stuff but when things get a little complicated our "gut feeling" tends to be wrong.
My other favourite probability paradox is the Monty Hall Problem. You're given the option to pick from 3 doors. Behind 2 of them are goats and behind 1 is a new car. You pick door #1. You're asked if you're sure or if you'd rather switch doors. Whether you stay or switch makes no difference. You have a 33% chance of winning either way. Then you're told that behind door #2 there is a goat. Do you stay with door #1 or switch to door #3? Switching to door #3 improves your odds of winning to 66%. It's a classic example of how additional information can be used to recalculate odds and it's how things like card counting work.
@ImplyingImplications @alt_total_loser I think, probabilities are high, this includes those who confirm their proofs.
Often the problem descriptions suffer from equivocation and unclear process frame.
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Humans are bad at perceiving true probability, we naturally look for patterns as an evolutionary trait. We also have the cultural beliefs around luck which don't actually have any basis in the real world—e.g. I've suffered some bad luck, but it's surely about to turn around.
Gambling games are typically designed to exploit these two traps that most people will fall into without realising.
I heard someone say that luck is just chance with a personal attachment.
That is why it is called a fallacy
The amount of circular conversations I've had with people...
"So you're telling me flipping heads 10 times in a row is likely? Then do it right now!"
"No, I'm just saying it's not less likely than any other combination."
"Oh I get it." [Flips head] "Right so next ones got to be tails"
🤦
The important part is "internalizing" that one spin doesn't influence the next. A red won't be more likely after N blacks unless something specifically made it that way. Sequences like "long run of reds/blacks" don't have any actual significance, but "seems like they should" because we're heavily geared towards pattern matching.
Am I weird because I would do the exact opposite. the fact that it landed like this time and time again tells me either the croupier has a biased throwing technique or the wheel is broken atm.
No you're not wrong. There's a reverse fallacy called the ludic fallacy: an unwarranted belief that the rules of the game describe how the game actually works.
"Given a fair table, if red comes up 99 times in a row, what are the relative odds of getting red vs. black?"
Mathematician, falling for the ludic fallacy: 1:1
Realist: You're wrong. The table isn't fair. Red is more likely.
However, people tend to underestimate how likely long runs are at a fair table.
Thanks for elaborating. :)
That could be reasonable in certain scenarios, but that's technically not the gambler's fallacy anymore; at that point you're talking about the "something specifically made it that way" I mentioned. I was talking about uniform/fair distribution of outcomes (part of the definition of the gambler's fallacy), otherwise it's just "hey, this distribution is lopsided as hell".
Interesting! Thanks for the heads up.
Apparently all roulette wheels have some imperfections and the older the wheel the more pronounced the imperfections become. In other words, these imperfections tend to lead to the ball landing in the same places over and over again. I read an article about a group of gamblers that studied particular roulette wheels, analyzed their flaws, and then made a series of bets, winning big. But, this would tend to attract attention, so they never really played the same wheel more than once.
Fallacy's are Fallacys exactly because they prey on some human emotion or evolutionary brain quirk.
never give up
never surrender
By Grabthar's hammer
What a savings
You're going to make it all back next time!
There's a story about a numbers runner from back in the day. Some people would bet a different number every day, but a lot would bet the same number every day, even if it never came up.
[The 'numbers' is a gambling game where you pick a three digit number; the runner would collect the bets and make the pay out. From the days before most places had a state run lottery]
it's to do with the priori
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
The Gambler's Fallacy is Really Odd
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You can always bet on odd/even in that case that way you have a chance no matter what colour it lands.
That's why they added 0 and 00 (green) so it's not quite 50/50 for odd/even or red/black.
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