The gambler’s fallacy refers to a common cognitive bias in which individuals mistakenly believe that independent random events are influenced by past outcomes (Fortune & Goodie, 2012). This fallacy is often illustrated in games of chance such as coin tosses, roulette, or lottery draws. For example, after observing a coin land on “heads” multiple times in succession, a person may incorrectly assume that “tails” is now more likely to occur. In reality, because each toss is an independent event, the probability remains constant at 50% for each outcome.
Fortune and Goodie (2012) examined the gambler’s fallacy as a psychological phenomenon that arises from the human tendency to seek patterns and impose causal reasoning where none exists. Their research indicates that this bias is not merely a product of misunderstanding probability but is deeply rooted in cognitive heuristics such as the law of small numbers, where people expect short sequences of random events to reflect the statistical properties of larger ones.
The gambler’s fallacy has broader implications beyond gambling contexts. It has been observed in financial decision-making, lottery participation, and even in judgments about natural events such as weather or earthquakes (Fortune & Goodie, 2012). Such biases can contribute to maladaptive behaviours, including risk-taking, overconfidence in predicting outcomes, and persistent engagement in gambling despite consistent losses.
From a theoretical perspective, the gambler’s fallacy highlights the limitations of human reasoning when confronted with randomness. It underscores the tension between intuitive thinking, which is prone to pattern recognition, and statistical reasoning, which requires an understanding of independence and probability distributions. Consequently, interventions aimed at reducing susceptibility to this fallacy often involve probabilistic training or awareness-raising about randomness, although research suggests these measures are not always effective in mitigating deeply ingrained cognitive biases (Fortune & Goodie, 2012).
Reference
Fortune, E. E., & Goodie, A. S. (2012). Cognitive distortions as a component and treatment focus of pathological gambling: A review. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 26(2), 298–310. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026422
