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Logical Fallacies in Gambling Games

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Gambling fallacy is the fallacy of the chances’ maturity. In other words, this is a belief that when one event occurs more times than normal at one point, it is less likely to act this way in the future – and vice versa. These events are statistically independent and commonly associated with gambling, though this psychological phenomenon can definitely occur elsewhere, too.

When a person attempts to rationalize their future manoeuvres in situations with elements of randomness, they can be guided by the gambling fallacy in the attempt to predict what happens next. As you can assume, gambling fallacies are most common among problem gamblers.

mistake label on a binder

What are the Different Gambling Fallacies?

There is no full or definite list of gambling fallaciesavailable anywhere since, after all, this is one type of a cognitive bias. As a result, there’s a debate surrounding defining the fallacy of online poker gambling or any type of gambling for that matter.

That being said, you can come across various fallacies if you do a bit of a research. There’s the distinction between culture and gambling fallacies to begin with. But the fact remains that fallacies are present all around, even among players who gamble at lowest deposit casino and those who play at a physical, live casino.

Here are the four most popular and frequently found fallacies in the casino world:

Monte-Carlo Fallacy

This fallacy is so popular that some people even refer to gambling fallacies with this name. This is the classic example, the one related to the failure to understand random events and their independence. The results of this fallacy are people who bet on the opposite outcome to occur because they believe that statistical deviations in one will be corrected by statistical deviations in the other direction, just for the purpose of evening things out.

Monte-Carlo fallacy is the reason for some of the top gambling mistakes made by casino players. For example, a person who believes in this trusts that if a gambling machine hasn’t paid out in a while, it will most likely pay out in the short future, and vice versa.

Another example is the belief that if you choose an orderly sequence of numbers like 1, 2, 3 etc., you are more likely to win compared to a non-orderly sequence.

Have you done this before? Many players who’ve played casino games like the pokies NZ real money use this logic behind picking the pokies and machine they play on.

Hot Hand Fallacy

Gambling devices like wheels and machines are programmed to produce random outcomes. This would mean that the past outcomes have absolutely no influence on future outcomes. However, some people believe that a winning streak on a single device will portend more winning. A similar belief under this casino fallacy is that certain winning numbers will re-appear more frequently than other numbers.

And of course, there’s the hot hand belief in sport betting when people believe that they are more likely to win at a certain time because the luck has been on their side. This superstition is present with many players despite the data from research that shows that random chance is most frequent with sports betting.

Illusion of Control

The next common tendency among gamblers is to believe that the action of a person can influence random events. For example, many people today prefer some ‘lucky numbers’ over others when playing lottery or the roulette. They always pick these numbers instead of choosing random numbers. This is more of a superstitious belief when people think they have control over the outcome of gambling. In fact, superstitious conditioning contributes to this type of illusion.

Thinking that you have control over the lottery numbers can cause you to make repetitive mistakes, therefore reducing your chances to win. Gambling is random and should be perceived as such.

Base Rate Neglect

Lastly, there’s the so-called base rate neglect. This fallacy occurs when people ignore the general probabilities based on statistics when they judge the frequency of an outcome. Instead, they estimate the frequency by the available instances in their memory.

Base rate neglect if the belief that if you participate in commercial forms of gambling, this is an excellent strategy for making money. Or, there’s the belief that winning the lottery is more likely to happen to you if you are aware of the number of people who have won the lottery over the years.

Are there other fallacies?

There are, of course, many other known logical fallacies, many of which are evident in the world of gambling. However, no one can surely determine or categorize the existing fallacies.

One interesting example is that of the sceptical inquirer gambling fallacies. According to this source, there are two twin fallacies – one of appeal to sanctity, and one of appeal to righteous indignation. Both attempt to shield the ideas from criticism, investigation or discussion and are rather common. Even so, these are not so frequently found in the gambling industry.

How to Avoid Logical Fallacies

Naturally, logical fallacies are not a great idea when you’re gambling with real money. To avoid them, you can implement one of two techniques: deductive or inductive reasoning.

Deductive reasoning happens when you start with general premises and move toward a more specific, more certain conclusion. Inductive reasoning happens when you start with a specific premise and reach a generalized conclusion.

The bottom line

Logical fallacy is only true until you start looking at it from a logical perspective. If you know how to detect a fallacy, you’ll realize that this is not the right approach. In return, this could save you from many gambling mistakes. Fallacies are common and superstition-like. They are all around and specifically created to mislead people. Those who believe in fallacies believe that logic has nothing to do with their gambling outcome. They find logic in strange superstitions that are implied by others.

Do Classic Skill Games Help Improve Your Casino Game?

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Hooded guy holding an ace

While we love a wide range of different skill games in practically every format available, we can’t help but notice how this doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone. Specifically, in the instances of online casinos, many classic games like rummy and cribbage don’t have much or any representation among the otherwise broad array of choices available.

This might not turn us off playing entirely, but it does raise questions of preparedness. With this in mind, we want to examine which skills learned in our more traditional games can transfer to iGaming, how might we utilize these skills, and why most traditional skill games haven’t (yet?) made the leap to online as other games have.

Understanding the Odds

Perhaps the most fundamental part of skill games, and a part which can be very useful in offering transferrable skills, is the ability to understand odds. Whether making up a board in rummy or figuring out where to put your next tile in dominoes, understanding the mathematical basis of the experience forms its backbone.

When making a move, you don’t just calculate what could give you the biggest score now, but also what to save now for future moves, what your opponent is likely to hold and play, and how you might prevent them from achieving a better score. This on-the-fly calculation is a skill which, while not identical, is still largely transferrable over an enormous range of different iGaming entries.

For example, games on Mr Gold online casino such as slots, baccarat, and video poker all require understanding probabilities as a baseline. From here, in poker especially, being able to match these probabilities with different winning combinations will massively increase a player’s odds of success.

The Human Aspect

Games like rummy and dominoes are, after all, about defeating your opponent. For the head-to-head games within iGaming, this gives a straightforward comparison. No matter how well you know the odds, the human aspect of gaming can always throw an additional element of unpredictability into the mix.

That said, human behavior, especially when it comes to a competitive will, can be learned, understood, and played to your benefit. Forcing people into getting frustrated in rummy will work much the same as it does in classic poker, and the same can be said for other games and forms of manipulation.

The basics of these ideas can be brought to the competitive iGaming arena with little fuss, with the only caveat coming from the indirect nature of play. When playing in person, understanding the way a person feels can be as simple as looking at their face. Online play, on the other hand, normally lacks this level of interaction, so judgments must be made on player actions and against previous experience. This makes gaining advantages here more difficult, but far from impossible.

A Question of Access?

As for why more skill-based classic games haven’t come to iGaming, this is a much more difficult question to answer. Fundamentally, it is likely down to legacy. The most popular head-to-head games in land-based casinos revolve around poker and poker, unlike many of our favorite skill games, has a strong historical basis in casino gambling. From riverboats to Macau, poker has always been a mainstay, and most new casinos embrace this.

Also contributing to this success is the relatively low cost of cards for games such as blackjack, baccarat and indeed poker – which, combined with their place in history, means picking up the game is simple, and desirable for millions of newcomers. It could also be true that rummy is simply far more fun on a casual level, whereas games like slots, blackjack, and roulette have been built around having money on the line to give them an edge.

Looking at the big picture, the answer to the question of if skill game expertise can translate to iGaming success is a resounding yes. The caveat here is this transference applies far more to some games than others and can rely on the slight expansion of existing knowledge. While it won’t give players a guaranteed win, there is little doubt that those coming from a background of skill games will do better than those starting fresh.

Infographic: Basic Card Odds and Probabilities

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There’s two things you need to have if you want to be truly good at playing cards: Luck and Maths. That first part is a little tricky, you can’t be reliably lucky because of the nature of gambling, so you’re best bet is to make sure you have something like a Betfair Casino Bonus in your pocket to give you an edge. You can, however, get a good grip on the maths involved relatively easily to help you predict what’s likely to come out of a deck. This infographic goes over a few of the more basic calculations and gives you a feel for the kind of numbers you’ll need to think about as you play (and how complex it can get depending on what it is, exactly, you’re after). The most important one to remember is that the odds of being dealt any single card is 1.9% and the odds will shift as cards come out and you need to adjust your figures. Good luck!