The Gambler's Fallacy

The Gambler's Fallacy

PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.

Cited

'Gamblers, and others, are led into this fallacy by confusing the odds against a whole sequence with the odds against any event in that sequence.' (113).

The odds against a coin landing heads five times in a row are therefore: 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 or 1/32 (113).

Very importantly...

Cited

'If the first four tosses, despite the odds, come down to heads, the chance of the fifth toss being heads is not 1 in 32, but 1 in 2.' (113). The odds for each individual toss remain the same! The previous tosses do not somehow effect the next. (113).

Pirie correctly reasons that philosophically, the odds remain the same. Luck will not improve or get worse. (114). Luck will not 'even out'. (114). The coin toss is random and heads or tails occurs by chance.

Judit Balla, Google+ Shared publicly

Investpedia

Cited

'What is the 'Gambler's Fallacy'

The gambler's fallacy is when an individual erroneously believes that the onset of a certain random event is less likely to happen following an event or a series of events. This line of thinking is incorrect because past events do not change the probability that certain events will occur in the future.'

Example

'The  Vancouver Canucks are likely to win the Stanley Cup in the next few years, because they have not won it since entering the League in 1970.'

Professional oddsmakers can create reasonable odds of a particular team winning the Stanley in a given year.

It has nothing to do with any concept that the odds will even out, or with fairness.

Pirie explains that in this context, the universe is not fair. (115).

Rather, from a Christian theological perspective, God has established laws of the universe and within that is mathematical chance which can be logically explained in equation. From a theological perspective, this is no way negates the concept of an infinite, eternal, sovereign, providential God that created and maintains natural laws and can interfere supernaturally within divine will as first and primary cause.