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The Gambler's Fallacy
Every spin is a stand-alone event
Many people believe in this sort of logic which is completely false. If I toss a coin and it comes down heads time after time, it will come down tails the next time. What is actually happening is that each flip of the coin is a stand-alone individual event and is not connected to any other spins in any way. There is something called the law of averages which says that after many flips, the coin will have come down as many times heads as tails and this was proved by a prisoner-of-war who spun a coin thousands of times and recorded the result of every flip. The law of averages was right. He got as many heads as tails after all these flips, but he could not forecast the result of any one spin. Each time he flipped the coin into the air, it was like the first time. He may often have had ten or twenty heads in a row but it all evened out in the long run.
What is a winning streak in blackjack?
Simply, a winning streak could be winning ten hands in a row, just like getting ten heads in a row flipping a coin. But it has no connection to the eleventh hand which is like the first hand. If you win ten hands in a row, this does not mean you will win the eleventh hand. It is the gambler's fallacy that makes you think your winning streak will continue. The gambler's fallacy will make you think that you are having a run of luck or that you are on a winning streak because you have won several times and you feel you are likely to continue winning.
Test yourself
You are flipping a coin, and you are being quite honest. You have just flipped 8 heads in a row. Is your next flip more likely to be:
1. heads
2. tails
3. heads and tails are equally likely
The correct answer is No 3, heads and tails are equally likely. Answer No 1 is an example of one version of the Gambler's Fallacy where you think that your luck will continue. Answer No 2 is an example of the opposite version of the Gambler's Fallacy where you think that your luck will change. A popular way to explain why answer No 3 is correct is the simple explanation, "the coin has no memory. It does not matter what the previous spins were. The coin always shows 50-50 odds."
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