The History Of The Gambler's Fallacy:
The Gambler's Fallacy is an ideological belief in the problem gambling community is the gambler’s fallacy, a belief that one can change the probability of future actions based on what has already occurred.
This belief dates to 1820 when the French polymath, Marquis de Laplace, first wrote about the topic in an essay where he discussed the societal trend that men believed that for every boy that was born, the likelihood would increase for the next child being a girl. However, gambler’s fallacy was first identified at the roulette tables in a Monte Carlo casino in 1913. Players at the table believed that because the last 10 spins of the roulette wheel were black that it was absolutely going to land on red; this resulted in more wagers and more betters at the table, with the wheel not landing on red for 26 more spins. This event gave gambler’s fallacy its namesake, the Monte Carlo fallacy.
Who Does The Gambler's Fallacy Impact?
This phenomenon, which can occur for people who sports wager or engage in casino games, is dangerous and can lead to more problem gambling as someone is falsely convincing themselves that they are likely to win after one more wager, or one more parlay. By not being able to clearly see the errors in this thought logic, gamblers are at clear risk of continual problem gambling under false pretenses.
Gambler’s fallacy results from behavioral tendencies surrounding around false statistical belief. People who are predisposed to this fallacy often believe that they can change outcomes of a small sample size, falsely believing that a small sample is representative of a large population.
Research About The Gambler's Fallacy:
A 2009 paper from Hahn & Warren outlines that gambler’s fallacy may be more than just a cognitive bias and can be based around an person’s attention span or short-term memory coming into play. Researchers tested this theory by exposing participants to 200 outcomes from a randomized Bernoulli process. This process led to the researchers finding there is more to gambler’s fallacy than just one’s bias towards gambling and compulsive action, and that the behaviors that are contributed to a gambler’s fallacy belief may reveal limitations towards one’s adaptive processes.
How To Avoid The Gambler's Fallacy:
Experts recommend that people should make their best effort to understand that they aren’t in control of the odds of casino games or the results of a sports match when gambling in order to avoid gambler’s fallacy.While it has been proven challenging, gamblers must remember that gambling increases one’s belief that they can beat the house or that their team will check off every leg of a parlay.
Gambler’s fallacy is an area that is increasingly studied, as more and more people become addicted to problem gambling in the United States and around the world.
Resources For Gambling Addiction Recovery:
Here's some resources for you to check out if you or someone you know is struggling with a gambling addiction:
Birches Health - Online Tele-Therapy
Gamban - Block Gambling Apps And Websites On Your Device
Evive - Better understand your own gambling behavior to help achieve your specific goal
Gamfin - Gambling-related financial problems? GamFin can help. They provide financial counseling for individuals and families in financial distress.
Let's conquer gambling addiction together, one day at a time!
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