Gambling Myths

The myths are:

1. Luck causes you to win and lose.
2. An event is either more or less likely if it has not happened for a long time.
3. The third baseman in blackjack should avoid taking cards.
4. Certain actions can affect your luck.

Here are the facts:

1. Luck has little or nothing to do with winning. Everybody except me seems to attribute winning streaks to good luck and losing streaks to bad luck. The laws of probability guarantee that there will be streaks in any form of gambling. Your money is supposed to go up and down like a roller coaster, that is the nature of mathematics. However, the greater the house advantage the more downhill time that roller coaster will have.

2. The probability of an event happening in most games has nothing to do with how recently it has last happened. Most people seem to think that a slot machine that just paid out a huge jackpot is unlikely to hit again for a long time. These same people think that a machine that hasn't hit for a while is "ripe" to pay a jackpot. Both these notions are false. Assuming the two slot machines have the same kind of reels they are both equally likely to pay a jackpot on the next spin. This is also true for video poker machines, the probability of hitting a royal flush is equal at all times. The machine doesn't have a memory. Dice, cards, and roulette balls also do not have memories. The only exceptions to this are card games like poker and blackjack, where every card that leaves the deck tells you something about the cards left to be played.

3. In the long run the third basemans playing will not affect the dealers hand. If you aren't familiar with blackjack many people think the last player to have a turn should avoid taking cards because the next one in the shoe will magically be bad for the dealer, usually causing him/her to bust. This is simply not true. The cards don't know how to order themselves so that the bust card will be ready when it is the dealer's turn. Of course it will happen sometimes that then next card is a ten that would have busted the dealer if the last player didn't take it. People will remember when this happens and forget all the times the third baseman caused the dealer to break because he/she did hit, or caused the dealer to lose because he/she did hit. This selective memory is what keeps myths like this alive.

4. Saying or doing certain things will not cause you to win or lose. I remember trying to explain to a friend how to play craps in Laughlin and an old man at the table got very upset every time I said certain numbers. This is pure foolishness and I kept right on talking. The dice don't have eyes and ears. The laws of mathematics dictate that you will sometimes win and sometimes lose. You can always look for certain causes but in the long run everything averages out.

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