The Science of Gambling Fallacies

Trading is often about how to take the appropriate risk without exposing yourself to very human flaws.
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FlatBack4
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun May 11, 2014 12:47 pm

Layman: After all those blacks, I’m betting red.

Mathematician: Despite the past, the probability of red or black remains the same.

Wise man: The probability of either remains the same, but there’s no way I’m betting red.


(I'd like to attribute this quote, but I can't remember where it came from. Lot of sense in it though).
burdo77
Posts: 351
Joined: Sun Jun 09, 2013 4:13 am

Would you get the same results in you shuffled deck of cards and pulled out red or black, I doubt it! I think pulling these absurd numbers in a row may have something to do with the weighting of the wheel, speed of the spin, humidity in the air. How the fuck do you decide it is a 50/50 game when u don't even understand the variables....
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BJGardner
Posts: 312
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2013 11:09 am

Yes this is based on the assumption that the wheel is unbiased. If you can find a bias roulette wheel you've found an edge.
speakers
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 9:44 am

And then you've got to assume the betting house is unbiased so you can take your winnings.
I worked out a method to guarantee some winnings on a betting site using the European Roulette and their free bet offer. The offer was that they would match your initial deposit up to something like £250 but (the small-print said) you had to bet that amount 11 times before you could withdraw it. So I put the money on, put £5 on every number and kept doing this until I had fulfilled the obligations. Of course, 15 spins later and I'd lost £75 of their free £250 and tried to withdraw my winnings. Unfortunately I got an email from their fraud department who, in no uncertain terms, told me to bugger off. Yes, they're all allowed to weight it in their favour and they needn't even fix the wheel!
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