Does a gambler's fallacy affect how you play? Let's find out

A person commits gambler's fallacy when he assumes that when something out of the usual happens, or what will happen in the long term, it will be managed or will end soon. Gambler's fallacy is done in two ways. In both instances, the person believes the outcome is the result of an event that is not the expected. The first way involves events whose possibilities of happening are independent from each other. An example is a coin toss. Each time the coin gets tossed, there is always an equal chance of the result being the head or tails. Assuming that a person tossed the coin for 6 times and it always landed on heads. When he concludes that the 7th toss will result in a tails since it is already due is fallacy since the previous results do not affect in any way the result of the last toss. The second way involves instances whose possibilities of happening are dependent on one another. For instance, assuming that a boxer won 50% of his matches over the last two years, and he has won 50% of his fights this year, when a person believes that the boxer would be victorious at his upcoming fight since he has lost enough is fallacy. It is wrong to assume that the boxer is "up" for a win since he ignored the detail that the previous result could affect that of the upcoming one, like the boxer could have sustained an injury in the previous match which would decrease his winning chance in the next fight.

But it is worth noting that not all forecasts are false. If there is concrete evidence for the predictions, it is reasonable to accept the prediction to be true. For example, when someone tosses a coin for nine times and always gets a heads and he assumes he will never toss a coin again for nine times and still never get tails is reasonable. In short, determining a gambler's fallacy requires sound judgment and a basic understanding on the laws of probability.