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>If a man in line behind you at the convenience store buys a lottery ticket and wins a million dollars, do you kick yourself for not buying that ticket when it

>If a man in line behind you at the convenience store buys a lottery ticket and wins a million dollars, do you kick yourself for not buying that ticket when it was your turn in line? That's a very nice analogy - is it something you came up with ? (I am going to steal it so I would like to know who I'm stealing from :) )

photochemsyn 5y ago
I think it's an example of the post hoc fallacy and is often presented in terms of a casino slot machine, where a player leaves the machine and the next player wins the jackpot. X is assumed to cause Y, simply because X occurred before Y. With the above example, X is 'not buying the lottery ticket when you had the chance' and Y is 'the next person to buy a lottery ticket wins the prize'.
- quietbritishjim 5y ago
  Slot machines are a much worse example because they have programmed minimum prize percentages, so if one has gone without a win for a while then it's more likely to win than average. With the lottery ticket, there was really no reason to have made that decision.
  - daveguy 5y ago
    Isnt this the fallacy? Aren't those minimum prize percentages set in advance? As in, if a machine has a 0.0002% chance jackpot it will have that with each pull and no less (ie minimum prize percentage). Minimum prize percentage just means it never goes below a certain percentage (eg it can't go to zero). Also, the smaller payouts can be higher minimum percent. But over the long term the payout is always less than the cost to play.
    - jrockway 5y ago
      My understanding is that the algorithm is something like: func doTheyWin(): if timeSinceLastWin < 10: winPercentage = 1 else if timeSinceLastWin < 100: winPercentage = 25 else: winPercentage = 99 return random(100) < winPercentage That is an algorithm designed to meet people's expectations of the gambler's fallacy, basically. Other comments say that slot machines in Las Vegas are prohibited from using this algorithm, but nothing is stopping, say, video games from doing this. (Hearthstone has a "pity timer" for giving you legendary cards in card packs, for example. It's random until it feels bad for you, or more likely the data shows that you won't buy any more card packs and they'll go out of business if they don't give you a legendary every 40 card packs or whatever.)
  - moondev 5y ago
    In roulette they post the last 20 or so results, the reason they do it is because the marble is not self aware of previous results, each marble roll is an independent event. I'm unsure if slots are like this, I guess it would depend on the quality of the RNG and trust in the casino/machine that it's configured correctly.
    - ac29 5y ago
      > In roulette they post the last 20 or so results, the reason they do it is because the marble is not self aware of previous results, each marble roll is an independent event. The reason they do this is the above, but actually because people are dumb and think they can see patterns that dont exist ("look the same number came up twice in a row! i better place a bet")
      - somehnacct3757 5y ago
        There was a time when you could infer a wooden roulette wheel's bias by collecting enough samples. I think now the casinos track this and retire biased wheels, which is why they have the data feed in the first place. And then yeah, why not publish it to make more types of gamblers interested in the game!
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    > so if one has gone without a win for a while then it's more likely to win than average. This isn't true. At least, in Las Vegas, by law every spin must have RNG that is independent of previous spins. They can't be programmed to "go cold" after a jackpot, or guarantee a win after a cold streak.
sithlord 5y ago
its basically a gamblers fallacy, another one is people will get angry if they were playing a slot machine, losing - got up and the next person immediately won a jackpot. they think it was their jackpot. when in reality it is just RNG at its finest.
slkdk32 5y ago
jeffwass 5y ago
Actually that does beg the question - does the randomiser seed for autopicked lotto numbers use a time stamp? Ie, would you have actually gotten the same numbers he would have gotten if you didn’t buy it?
- somehnacct3757 5y ago
  You could replace it with a scratch-off ticket to dodge the problem

photochemsyn 5y ago

I think it's an example of the post hoc fallacy and is often presented in terms of a casino slot machine, where a player leaves the machine and the next player wins the jackpot. X is assumed to cause Y, simply because X occurred before Y. With the above example, X is 'not buying the lottery ticket when you had the chance' and Y is 'the next person to buy a lottery ticket wins the prize'.

quietbritishjim 5y ago
Slot machines are a much worse example because they have programmed minimum prize percentages, so if one has gone without a win for a while then it's more likely to win than average. With the lottery ticket, there was really no reason to have made that decision.
- daveguy 5y ago
  Isnt this the fallacy? Aren't those minimum prize percentages set in advance? As in, if a machine has a 0.0002% chance jackpot it will have that with each pull and no less (ie minimum prize percentage). Minimum prize percentage just means it never goes below a certain percentage (eg it can't go to zero). Also, the smaller payouts can be higher minimum percent. But over the long term the payout is always less than the cost to play.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    My understanding is that the algorithm is something like: func doTheyWin(): if timeSinceLastWin < 10: winPercentage = 1 else if timeSinceLastWin < 100: winPercentage = 25 else: winPercentage = 99 return random(100) < winPercentage That is an algorithm designed to meet people's expectations of the gambler's fallacy, basically. Other comments say that slot machines in Las Vegas are prohibited from using this algorithm, but nothing is stopping, say, video games from doing this. (Hearthstone has a "pity timer" for giving you legendary cards in card packs, for example. It's random until it feels bad for you, or more likely the data shows that you won't buy any more card packs and they'll go out of business if they don't give you a legendary every 40 card packs or whatever.)
- moondev 5y ago
  In roulette they post the last 20 or so results, the reason they do it is because the marble is not self aware of previous results, each marble roll is an independent event. I'm unsure if slots are like this, I guess it would depend on the quality of the RNG and trust in the casino/machine that it's configured correctly.
  - ac29 5y ago
    > In roulette they post the last 20 or so results, the reason they do it is because the marble is not self aware of previous results, each marble roll is an independent event. The reason they do this is the above, but actually because people are dumb and think they can see patterns that dont exist ("look the same number came up twice in a row! i better place a bet")
    - somehnacct3757 5y ago
      There was a time when you could infer a wooden roulette wheel's bias by collecting enough samples. I think now the casinos track this and retire biased wheels, which is why they have the data feed in the first place. And then yeah, why not publish it to make more types of gamblers interested in the game!
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  > so if one has gone without a win for a while then it's more likely to win than average. This isn't true. At least, in Las Vegas, by law every spin must have RNG that is independent of previous spins. They can't be programmed to "go cold" after a jackpot, or guarantee a win after a cold streak.

sithlord 5y ago

its basically a gamblers fallacy, another one is people will get angry if they were playing a slot machine, losing - got up and the next person immediately won a jackpot. they think it was their jackpot. when in reality it is just RNG at its finest.

slkdk32 5y ago

jeffwass 5y ago

Actually that does beg the question - does the randomiser seed for autopicked lotto numbers use a time stamp? Ie, would you have actually gotten the same numbers he would have gotten if you didn’t buy it?

somehnacct3757 5y ago
You could replace it with a scratch-off ticket to dodge the problem