At the track, a gambler bets on the wrong horse in a 10-horse field nine times in a row.Later, when talking to a friend, he said he was confident that he would pick the winner the next time, because he was "due to pick a winner." Comment on his reasoning.
A)If he doesn't pick the winning horse next time, he will shortly after that.
B)When there are 10 horses in a race and he has chosen the wrong horse nine times in a row, he statistically should pick a winner the next time.
C)This is false reasoning because there is no "law of averages" for independent events.
D)This is false reasoning because he doesn't appear to be lucky.
E)None of the above apply.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This is an example of the gambler's fallacy, which is the incorrect belief that independent events in a random process can affect the likelihood of future events. Each race is an independent event, and the outcome of previous races does not influence the probability of winning in the next race.

At the Track, a Gambler Bets on the Wrong Horse