The Gambler's Fallacy

The Gambler's Fallacy and how a simple game of roulette in 1913 single handedly took in millions of francs (for the house)

[lewiswhitling]

when you feel unloved, just remember that you're not boy number 14 in that family

[jagoq]

My daughter was the first girl on my Dad's side of the family for 120 years.

[RiverWilliamson]

The inverse of this happened in filming of "Run Lola Run". Near the emotional climax, Lola needed to get double zero on the Roulette table twice. She managed to get it in two spins so everybody's reaction on screen was genuine. They expected to be there all day.

[niallmartin]

In reality, if that streak of black was the only knowledge you had of the wheel, I'd say it was actually more likely black would come up again, as the table may not actually have even odds at all.

[patriciaitalia]

Hannah, we hit the jackpot when you started making videos!

[johnkidd]

This lassie has a doppelganger in the Scottish Highlands. The lass that ran a burger van I used to frequent is her absolute spitting image. Crazy how alike they are, like identical twins really.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[Mr.Clingclong]

Hannah has one of the most beautiful speaking voices in the television industry today. She could read the contents of a Haynes repair shop manual (Hillman Hunter 1970 to 1977) and it would be like listening to of course the poem was about amongst other things, changing the oil filter on a Hillman get the picture.

[rafnaj]

I could watch/listen to her talk about anything

[UpIsNotJump]

The chances of getting 26 black in a row is the same as any other combination, just feels wrong to our wee brains

[timdowney]

Probably the university class that was most notably and immediately useful to me was Probability Theory. Curbed my desire to bet on anything unless I can fix the result. 😉

That was half a century ago. 😱😄😄

Thank you Dr. Berman.

[wcubbin]

In the past I have struggled to resolve an apparent conflict between the gambler's fallacy and regression to the mean. My simplistic concept was "Surely (if the wheel is fair) we should expect more reds in future to even out the run of blacks so it evens out to 50:50??"
However I read a very good explanation of this recently, that pointed out the impact on the overall average, caused by a chance run of 26 blacks, is simply diluted into insignificance after a large enough number of subsequent spins.
Taking this idea a little further you can see that over a million spins we should see close to 500k of each colour, but there is no force that can dictate which order the colours will appear in.

[barbararowley]

It’s genuinely scary how bad most people are at understanding probability. I learnt the basics in Year 9 (Form 3), so it should be fair to assume learning the difference between independent and dependent variables is covered at a similar age level in most countries, yet so many seem to forget those lessons as soon as the class is over. A pity, since it’s a branch of Maths with huge, obvious, real world applications in every day life.

[pigeonstrangler]

My maths teacher once asked the class what the odds of a coin being heads is? The answer was of course 50/50. The teacher then asked the class ‘what if it was heads ten times in a row during previous flips?”. Amazingly, many in the class changed their answers to give tails a higher probability. I learned this lesson then.

[Ben-OConnor]

This used to be my favourite bit on Deal or No Deal. Guessing if the person was a "I'm due a blue" or a "I'm on a streak of reds" type of person.

[davew]

This assumes the roulette wheel hasn't been tampered with.

[ronandunlea]

Love how you explain things in a simple way: a natural educator ❤

[jolsm]

Quick fact: 99% of gamblers quit just before hitting the big prize

[CJHiero]

You do a wonderful job of making mathematical concepts relatable. I hit Red 27 three times in a row one night, as further proof that statistical probability is only reliable with LARGE sample groups

[alexharo]

Can't stop listening AND watching her😍💖
Awesome content!! 😃👍🏻

[LRD]

You always amaze me.. 😮you are a fantastic inspiration and smart intelligent woman.. sending some love and appreciation from Sweden 🇸🇪👍😘❤️☘️😊🙏🙏 I can listen to you for hours 😊