Games such as poker, rummy or blackjack have an element of skill and judgement involved, which can be used to affect the outcome. Roulette, however, is a game of pure chance and there is no way of estimating what number might possibly be next.
I haven’t been into a casino for some years, but from time to time I do like to have a bit of a gamble on Pogo.com. Never for money, of course. No, this is gambling for virtual tokens, and I do it mainly for the game-play and not for the winnings (although it is, naturally, exciting to hear the word “WINNER” when I’ve hit the elusive “moonshot”). This is one of my favourites of the many games on that site, called Big Shot Roulette which, as the more attentive of my readers might have guessed, is the game of roulette.
But I wouldn’t play on a real roulette wheel (well, I have in the past but not anymore) because it’s just not possible to have any influence over the outcome.
At this point, it’s possible you may be reading this and shaking your head in the knowledge that there are systems and methods for tracking numbers and making an educated guess regarding the next number. You may have even used them yourself in the past with varying levels of success.
They don’t work.
Yes, given an infinite number of spins of the wheel you would expect that every number will turn up in equal amounts, and should be the same number of red numbers as black numbers. Does this mean, then, that if a black number has turned up 5 times in a row, that the next number is almost certain to be a red?
Absolutely not!
Over a very large number of spins, you could reasonably expect the ratio of black to red to be somewhat even, but by no means does this apply over a short sequence of spins. This is a mistake of reasoning that we all seem to make when we are not thinking rationally about it. Not you, obviously. But other people.
I flipped a coin six times a moment ago. Only one of these three combinations is the true sequence. Which do you think it was?
- HHHHHH
- HTHHTT
- TTTTTT
By now you’re probably getting the idea, and if you decided that any one of those could possibly be the true sequence, you are right. Each has an equal chance of being true, but it seems counter-intuitive to accept that I could end up with six heads, or six tails, in a row. The coin has no memory, and so each flip of the coin has a 50/50 chance of being a head or a tail, regardless of what came before it.
But WHY?
We tend to think of the more typical events as being the more probable. It’s this flawed logic that keeps casinos in-pocket and hopeful but misguided gamblers out-of-pocket. It’s much easier for the brain to formulate logic based on our memory of our experiences (we’ve hardly ever, if at all seen anyone flip six tails in a row) rather than objectively arriving at the true probability using proper mathematics. A mental shortcut, if you like, and yet another area where our emotion rules over reason.
Hopefully now, you will be able to examine your own behaviour and habits and spot any likely areas where you might be applying this flawed thinking in your own life. Personally, I’m staying well clear of roulette tables unless they happen to be electronic representations where there is no danger of me losing my hard-earned money.
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