gambler-y [Biases & Fallacies]

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
====== Gambler's Fallacy Bias ======

By [[yiler-huang| Yiler Huang]]

Gambler’s Fallacy bias is the belief that if something already happened a lot, then it might be less likely to happen in the future. A classic example is the coin flipping game. When asked to guess if a coin landed on head or tails repeatedly, people are less likely to give the same answer many times in a row. This is because they think if a coin landed on one side many times already, then it is likely not going to land on that side again. Another example is buying lottery tickets. Some people would avoid picking the numbers that showed up in the last results because of this fallacy. 

I have also fallen into the fallacy before. Just a while ago it rained a lot. It had been raining for a few days and one day I thought it might stop because of that, and I didn’t bring an umbrella with me. However, it still rained and I got absolutely bamboozled by the gambler’s fallacy. 

Falling into this fallacy could be dangerous, as it affects your decision making and makes you take illogical decisions. In the context of a coin flipping game, the consequence might not be severe as it would only make you lose some games (unless you’re actually gambling and betting something). In the context of lottery tickets, things start to get more serious as you are spending money to buy them. People could fall into this fallacy and believe that they would win a lottery one day, and end up wasting a lot of their money on it.