Gamblers often think that there is some natural force that keeps losses and gains ”in balance”. One hears them say that their luck has been bad for so long, it surely must be about to turn in their favor soon. At a roulette table, one hears people say that since 5 or 6 red numbers in a row have turned up, “it must be time” for a black number to turn up.
This is the “gambler’s fallacy”. In fact, of course, there is no such natural law of balance. Unless the table is rigged, the odds in roulette of getting a black number on the next play are the same whether it has been preceded by 1 red number or 100 red numbers in a row. For gambling games with no skill involved and a level playing field, like flipping coins or cutting cards, mathematically the best estimate of how much you will be ahead or behind 100 plays from now is exactly how much you are ahead or behind right now. For nonskill games in which the house takes a percentage of each play, like roulette or slots, the only certainty is that slowly but surely the house will make money from you. In these cases, gambling is just a tax on the innumerate.
A few games, like poker, do involve some skill, and in those cases one’s odds do depend to a degree on how good you are compared to the other players. As the poker saying goes, if you can’t tell who is the mark at the table, then it’s you!
Why is this important? Because, one way or another, we all gamble in our day to day lives, and we are all susceptible to the gambler’s fallacy.
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