The Truth about the Gambler's Fallacy

It's a known fact that roulette is a game that is based purely on luck. As such, there's nothing a player can do except to hope and wish for good luck to come his way. However, many roulette players still rely on so-called roulette systems that are mostly based on mathematical assumptions such as probability.

Many gamblers and roulette players rely on probability in making their bets. This common practice has given rise to the "gambler's fallacy." A gambler's fallacy is the false notion or belief that the odds of winning in a particular game increase or decrease based on the previous outcomes or results.

A roulette player using the gambler's fallacy would wait for black bets to appear five times in a row before betting on red. This gambler believes that when a certain bet appears several times in a row, the likelihood of the other or opposite bet to appear increases.

To illustrate the gambler's fallacy, you should look at the "head or tails" coin flip. There is an even, or 50-50, chance of either a head or a tail to come up on the coin flip. Sometimes, you will notice that the occurrences do not show up alternately, but on streaks. Heads may come up three times in a row or tails may appear five times in a row. This is normal and the occurrences will even out in the long run.

In roulette, even if the red bet comes up 10 times or even a hundred times in a row, the odds on future outcomes remain constant. The roulette wheel doesn't care how many times a bet appears on the results, because the odds of hitting red are the same as the odds of getting black.

Even if the gambler's fallacy has already proven to be ineffective as a basis for roulette systems, many gamblers still fall for this method. Casinos take advantage of this situation to set up tote boards that show the results of previous spins of the roulette wheel.

This board supposedly serves as a guide for roulette players to know if a certain number or color has come up consecutively. The casinos really don't care if the players know the previous results, since future spins of the wheel are not dependent on previous ones.

The gambler's fallacy may seem harmless especially if you play roulette only once in a while. However, if you use the gambler's fallacy to place more bets and spend more money than you originally intended, then that's where this belief becomes dangerous. You should never allow the gambler's fallacy to influence you to make bets that you wouldn't make in normal, ordinary situations.

The blind belief in the gambler's fallacy is dangerous to your play and your bankroll. Play roulette intelligently and don't allow the gambler's fallacy to ruin your game plan.