# Gambler's fallacy

*Also called: Monte Carlo fallacy*

- **Cluster:** Causal errors — Sequence, coincidence and hindsight read as cause
- **Page:** https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/gamblers/
- **In Arabic:** https://fallacy.wiki/ar/fallacy/gamblers.md
- **Licence:** CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

## What it is

Believing that independent events correct themselves, so a run makes the opposite due.

## In the wild

> Red came up five times, so black is due.

## How to answer it

Ask whether the process has any memory. If each trial is independent, the odds do not move.

## Origin and naming

Also called the Monte Carlo fallacy, after a night in 1913 when a roulette wheel there landed on black 26 times in a row and gamblers lost heavily betting that red was 'due'. The name survives because it is the cleanest known instance of expecting randomness to keep accounts.

## More places it shows up

- I've applied to ten jobs and heard nothing, so the eleventh application is bound to land.
- She's had three boys in a row, so this one is almost certainly a girl.
- The coin came up heads seven times; I'm putting everything on tails.
- Our startup's last four product launches flopped, so by the law of averages the next one has to be a hit.

## How to spot it

- Listen for the word 'due' — as if some ledger is being balanced.
- The speaker talks about the past as if it were pushing on the future.
- No one mentions the mechanism that would change the odds; the run itself is the argument.

## Nearby

- [Regression fallacy](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/regression.md)
- [Base rate neglect](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/base-rate.md)
- [Slothful induction](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/slothful-induction.md)

## Read more

- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy)
- [The Fallacy Files](https://www.fallacyfiles.org/gamblers.html)

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From fallacy.wiki — a bilingual field guide to 91 logical fallacies, published by phi holdings. Licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): reuse freely with attribution to fallacy.wiki.