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The Gambler's Fallacy
Richard Rost 
          
20 days ago
This is the mistaken belief that past outcomes influence future ones in random, independent systems. Like thinking a number is "due" to hit just because it hasn't come up in a while. Or assuming a recent streak will magically continue, or suddenly reverse, just because it's "about time."

A few years back, I made a video that showed how to use Excel to highlight winning lottery numbers. Totally harmless. You paste in past results and your picks, and it flags your matches. But ever since then, I keep getting the same question over and over: "Do you know an algorithm to predict winning numbers?" No, dude. And if I did, I'd be using it myself and definitely not posting it online. Come on.

People think if a number hasn't shown up in a while, it's due. Or if one has come up a lot lately, it's less likely to show again. But lottery drawings are statistically independent. Every number has the same chance every single time. There's no memory. There's no pattern.

My wife is this way with scratchies. She loves those scratch-off lottery tickets and will always go back and buy them where she had a winner before. I keep telling her it doesn't work that way - every place is just as likely to have a winning ticket as not. But superstitions die hard.

Like the pitcher who refuses to change his socks because he's on a winning streak. Yeah, like your stank-ass socks are helping you win. LOL.

This fallacy is also known as the Monty Carlo Fallacy. One of the most striking real-world examples is the infamous 1913 incident at the Monte Carlo Casino. During a game of roulette, the ball landed on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers, believing that red was "due," bet heavily against black, resulting in massive losses when black continued to come up. This event is a textbook case of the gambler's fallacy, where individuals assume that past random events influence future ones, despite each spin being independent.

Same thing happens in IT*.

I had a client years ago who stopped checking his backups. For years, every backup job completed successfully. So he figured, why bother looking? One day, the server crashed, and surprise - the last good backup was three months old. Something had silently failed. Nobody noticed because they assumed past success meant future success. But just because something has always worked doesn't mean it always will. Backups need verification. Logs need checking. Systems don't owe you a lucky streak.

So put a reminder on your calendar: check your backups. Manually verify the files are copying correctly. It's one thing to have a backup system in place. It's another to verify it. I have a nightly backup of all of my critical files. I have a weekly reminder on my calendar to manually verify said backups.

A great example of the gambler's fallacy shows up in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 3, Episode 8 - The Price*. Several groups, including the Ferengi and the Federation, are negotiating for rights to use what appears to be a stable wormhole. They send a probe through, and it exits into the Delta Quadrant and then returns through the same spot. Based on that one round trip, everyone assumes the wormhole is fixed and reliable. But it's not. A second probe fails to return, and it's discovered that the wormhole's exit point moves unpredictably. The Ferengi, convinced by the apparent pattern, fly a shuttle into it and get stranded on the far side of the galaxy. They gambled on consistency where none existed. Years later, we find them again in Voyager, having taken over a primitive culture. This is gambler's fallacy in action: assuming that just because something behaved a certain way once or twice, it's going to keep doing that. Spoiler: it doesn't.

I almost used the example of Riker playing poker. He bluffs a lot, and the other characters often think, well, because Riker bluffs more than someone like Data, he's probably bluffing again. But that's not exactly the gambler's fallacy. That involves human behavior, not randomness. Riker chooses whether to bluff or not. There's a pattern there. People who bluff often are more likely to bluff again, and those who rarely bluff are usually playing straight. So it's not purely random. That said, it is a lot more surprising when someone like Data decides to bluff. But even then, it's not gambler's fallacy - it's psychology and behavior. Although, now that I think about it, Data is an android... maybe he uses a random number generator to decide when to bluff. Wouldn't surprise me. Probably a subroutine called "Strategic Deception v2.1" or something.

The bottom line: random doesn't mean predictable. Random doesn't mean fair. Whether you're writing code, drawing lottery balls, or watching temporal loops unfold on the viewscreen, don't assume the universe is keeping score. It isn't.

LLAP
RR

* Can't have a good Captain's Log without an IT example and a Star Trek reference. :)
Richard Rost OP  @Reply  
          
20 days ago

Richard Rost OP  @Reply  
          
20 days ago
Not exactly sure if that dude standing is supposed to be Worf, but I asked the AI to make me a picture of the Next Generation crew sitting around playing poker. That guy shouldn't be standing over Data's shoulders like that. That's not cool in any poker situation. And secondly, who the hell is that? He almost looks like he has Romulan ears with original series Klingon facial hair.
Thomas Gonder  @Reply  
        
20 days ago
Oh did I make this error, even as an ex-statistics teacher. I was playing blackjack when online gambling first came out. I lost 6 or 7 times in a row, and made a bet to recover my losses to that point, figuring what is the chance (not probability, because I know what that was, <50%) I could lose again. I lost it all. Never to play online again. I also began to have doubts about the honesty of that site, given that I won many games when the bet was only $2 but seemed to lose consistently at higher bets.
Thomas Gonder  @Reply  
        
20 days ago
Back in the day we used 1/2" tapes for backups, maybe hanging 4 of them to get a single backup. There was no way to verify the backup was good. You could read through the tape, and all seemed in order. But when it came time to use it, a small glitch in the tape, software or data made it unrecoverable. Even if it was only a day old, worse with tapes that had been rack-hanging awhile. Many a late night I flamed the devil's ears when this happened.

To this day, I still don't fully trust the backups, even though I turn on the verify after option. Fortunately, with disk and memory reliability, I don't have to do many image restores very often. But I know, one day when my SSD gives out...
Richard Rost OP  @Reply  
          
20 days ago
Yeah, I don't mess around. I back up everything manually between multiple drives, and then I even have my backup routine that copies it to my Google Drive for an offsite copy. I use versioning, so I've always got at least 5 older versions of it in case of bug creep in somewhere. I've lost many hard drives to failure, so I know the pain all too well.
Thomas Gonder  @Reply  
        
20 days ago
Richard Like you (and other smart people) I've always got the backups stored in a few places (even in a fireproof safe and another house). Not much in the cloud. The problem is still like the old days. You might be able to restore a directory or file now and again, and that gives you a false sense of security. The problem is with a complete image restore; those have always been problematic. Even recently. More so given the "personal" nature of PCs and their varied electronics.

In the old PICK systems I've talked about, the main backup was of the entire system. But there were two restore programs, one for the whole system and one for restore of DB "accounts", files and even down to an individual record. The problem was the three programs were rarely fully in synch with each other, or there was some hardware glitch when the 1/2" tape was written. You might drive across town to another mini-computer to try the restore, only to find the head alignment was off just enough to not be able to read your tape. More Aggghhh. Or if it did work, then your friend's computer might not restore, and you had two down systems waiting to be brought back up. And they call them the "Happy Days"?
Richard Rost OP  @Reply  
          
20 days ago
Oh yeah, I've got full drive images but I don't think I've ever restored a full image before because, let's face it, if the computer is that far gone, I'm just going to buy a new one, and I prefer starting with a fresh copy of Windows anyway. Then it's reinstall all your apps, take the day configuring everything and getting it just the way you like it, and then restore your data. So drive images are nice in theory, but come on, who wants all that registry bloat anyway?
Thomas Gonder  @Reply  
        
20 days ago
Richard Oh, I've had to replace many a laptop to be sure. And it's been quite a while since a hard disk failed and needed replacing. I'm thinking this SSD after a few years might start acting up. So far, I like this HP, so I'm thinking this is my most likely reason for an image restore. For anything else, I'm on your path.

That all said, I do have concerns about Microsoft updates and BitLocker. Besides the SSD, those are my weakest links, and about a year ago I did do an image restore of the Windows partition (c:) after a corrupted Office update. I keep my USER data on d: and other drives for things like the media library. It was a pleasure to restore c: and not worry about my data (like the ADS; another 2 cents?).
Richard Rost OP  @Reply  
          
20 days ago
Cash money. Pay up. LOL
Thomas Gonder  @Reply  
        
19 days ago
Richard You don't accept Bitcoin? I got some in another box around here somewhere. Maybe a landfill after all these years, you're welcome to all we can find there.
Richard Rost OP  @Reply  
          
19 days ago
Haha. I used to dabble in bitcoin until I realized that one of these days it's going to disappear. I don't trust it.
Sam Domino  @Reply  
     
19 days ago
This discussion reminded me of the ST:TNG episode "Cause and Effect" and all the "3's".  LOL!
Michael Olgren  @Reply  
     
19 days ago
My problem is that the Monty Hall problem is not too far off from the  Gambler’s Fallacy, so I’m never quite sure  when I do have better odds.

Here’s an explanation for those not familiar:

https://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-monty-hall-problem/
Richard Rost OP  @Reply  
          
19 days ago
Michael, it's funny you mention that. The Monty Hall problem is actually on my list for a future Captain's Log, so stay tuned. But since you brought it up, here's the quick version for everyone else...

The Gambler's Fallacy is the false idea that past random events affect future ones. Like thinking red is "due" on the roulette wheel just because black came up five times in a row. Each spin is independent. The wheel doesn't care.

The Monty Hall problem, on the other hand, is real probability math that just feels wrong. You pick a door, Monty opens one with a goat, and asks if you want to switch. Most people think it's 50/50 at that point, but it's actually better to switch. The math says so. We'll get into the why in the full post later. Just know: one is a fallacy, and the other just breaks your brain in a different way.
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