Back in the summer of 1913, just a year before the beginning of the First World War, and in a time of growing international tension, an extraordinary event occurred in a Monte Carlo Casino on a scale not yet witnessed before. It seemed a normal day for the casino personnel and their patrons until an unusual sequence of identical colors on the roulette table began to change everything. The color black kept cropping up, over and over again. After some time, the patrons, erroneously assuming that with each black result the chances of a subsequent red would increase, began to wager all their chips on red numbers. It was an ill-reasoned move, because on this particular summery day the roulette ball landed on black 26 times in a row.
It's tempting to forgive the patrons for their intuitive sense that a past random event influences the outcome of a future random event. To use another example: would a run of even numbers at the roulette table mean a greater chance of odd numbers the next time? The answer is no.
This is the gambler's fallacy. Its basis in human psychology has been documented by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in a kind of thinking called the representative heuristic, where people tend to believe that short sequences of random events should be representative of larger ones.
Let's take the example of a game of Russian roulette as an analogy of the gambler's fallacy as it applies to the slot machines. In Russian roulette, a revolver with a chamber capacity of six bullets has a single piece of live ammunition loaded. After each pull of the trigger, whether or not a bullet actually fires, the gunner spins the chamber before shooting another round. What's just happened? In each fire of the gun, the chances of firing the actual bullet remains constant every time. Of course, if the chamber were not spun then the odds would change, but that's not how Russian roulette works. It's the same with the slot machines.
Many people erroneously assume that a machine that hasn't paid out big winnings for a long time is primed for a jackpot, whereas the machine that has paid out will now just swallow your money. It's anecdotal and perhaps even intuitive, but completely incorrect, and a perfect instance of the gambler's fallacy.
The simple fact is that in any casino establishment, the player's chances are always eclipsed by the house. How do you think casinos have managed to stay in business for so many years? The few that win should never be taken as indicative of the enormous percentage that don't. Therein, of course, lies rub: when you do win you can change your life. And even if your winnings are too humble to a buy new house in Vermont, the sheer thrill of victory, the experience of making money without many months of labor, is often enough to keep you hooked permanently.
It's tempting to forgive the patrons for their intuitive sense that a past random event influences the outcome of a future random event. To use another example: would a run of even numbers at the roulette table mean a greater chance of odd numbers the next time? The answer is no.
This is the gambler's fallacy. Its basis in human psychology has been documented by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in a kind of thinking called the representative heuristic, where people tend to believe that short sequences of random events should be representative of larger ones.
Let's take the example of a game of Russian roulette as an analogy of the gambler's fallacy as it applies to the slot machines. In Russian roulette, a revolver with a chamber capacity of six bullets has a single piece of live ammunition loaded. After each pull of the trigger, whether or not a bullet actually fires, the gunner spins the chamber before shooting another round. What's just happened? In each fire of the gun, the chances of firing the actual bullet remains constant every time. Of course, if the chamber were not spun then the odds would change, but that's not how Russian roulette works. It's the same with the slot machines.
Many people erroneously assume that a machine that hasn't paid out big winnings for a long time is primed for a jackpot, whereas the machine that has paid out will now just swallow your money. It's anecdotal and perhaps even intuitive, but completely incorrect, and a perfect instance of the gambler's fallacy.
The simple fact is that in any casino establishment, the player's chances are always eclipsed by the house. How do you think casinos have managed to stay in business for so many years? The few that win should never be taken as indicative of the enormous percentage that don't. Therein, of course, lies rub: when you do win you can change your life. And even if your winnings are too humble to a buy new house in Vermont, the sheer thrill of victory, the experience of making money without many months of labor, is often enough to keep you hooked permanently.
About the Author:
The Gambler's Fallacy: Intuition versus hard science. You decide. Brought to you by the true Canadian online casino .Winners know when to stop, always gamble responsibly.
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