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Talk:Gambler's fallacy

This Gambler's fallacy has a fallacy within itself
What if I imagine I bet 0 unit on the first several game? You cannot get it logically right — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.232.202.2 (talk) 07:43, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Good article
Before nominating again, fully source the article with references that comply with WP:MEDRS. --LauraHale (talk) 08:41, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Slot machine jackpots can in most cases be "due"
In most jurisdictions, Slot Machines etc have Payout schedule / percentage required by law and predetermined by the manufacturer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_machine#Payout_percentage. Perhaps modify the example in the second paragraph to Roulette or something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Billyoffland (talk • contribs) 15:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Pim says: Totally agree! This sentence suggests slotmachines make random choices, while all modern slotmachines are programmed to be predictable.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pimnl (talk • contribs) 19:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Whoa, with respect, the above two comments are absolutely incorrect. Slots do in fact have a payback percentage set but this does not ever mean a machine can be "due". The payback percentage reflects what will statistically happen given the chance of each reel stop and the payback set to particular combinations of stops. This payback percentage is in no way guaranteed to occur in any set period of time. A slot machine might be set with a 95% payback schedule but may payback 50% one day and 150% the next. It could even payback well above or below its payback percentage for years, however statistically unlikely. The only guarantee is that in an infinite number of spins the machine will average its set payback percentage. The random number generators in slots are independent trials and do not have "memories" and the computer inside will not, and cannot, influence the RNG to try and match the payback. This is based on 15 years of experience as a casino employee. I've worked with game manufacturers and have read plenty of PAR sheets. For another source see: http://www.casinocenter.com/?p=846 AlmtyBob (talk) 06:24, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

To put all that another way: If a slot machine fails to pay out for a whole year, it is not the case that some agent of government will knock on the casino's door to talk about it, nor will the casino be expected to do anything in particular. They might generally be require to demonstrate the machine's fairness ante facto, but not post facto. (If it were the latter than it might make some sense to consider a result "due", especially if it's the last day within a year during which the machine is officially required to pay out 1% of earnings, and it hasn't paid out all year.) 141.158.199.150 (talk) 20:30, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's some more information in support of AlmtyBob. The truth is that programmers calculate slot machines payout rates OVER THE LIFETIME OF THE MACHINE, not to an annual or any other arbitrary standard. Read any of the industry journals and you'll see this corroborated. Also, I called the gambling commission to check this out in my home state of WA, as I'm working on a white paper on this very subject. And my state commission agrees with what has been stated in every published book on the industry (I've looked this up in 4 of them), that payout chips on the motherboard of the machine chassis are not set to "pay out" at any time in particular, that they function almost (but not quite) as randomly as the random number generator over the life of the machine, and that this generally random behavior is required in the base game by state and federal law. The machines in my jurisdiction even on Indian land are regularly inspected by commission agents. Any changes on the gaming floor must be registered with the gambling commission first for departmental and public review, so none of this is secret. When I asked the department rep on the phone if slot machines are set to pay out by a particular date in the year, she just laughed. Here's both an online and published source, widely respected, that refutes the contentions in the original unsigned comment above: https://www.americancasinoguide.com/. Laguna greg 21:09, 31 August 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laguna greg (talk • contribs)

Coins
Allow me to point out that euro coins don't have an equal distribution of weight hence the national side of the coin comes up more often. Try it for yourself and see. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.154.157 (talk) 19:56, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I cannot find any verifiable evidence for this, but I can find verifiable evidence that coins, in general, are fair when flipped, regardless of the distribution of weight. You cannot "weight" a coin like you can "weight" dice, unless you are spinning, rolling, or otherwise allowing the coin to contact a surface before stopping it. Eebster the Great (talk) 02:06, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I have always been unconvinced of the lack of bias in coin-tossing. Any coin is of a finite size. When tossed, finite energy is pumped into the flick that gives it lift and spin. The coin, on any trial, will then rotate a certain finite number of half-spins while falling upwards, and a possibly larger number when it pauses and falls downwards towards the landing surface. Humans have a tendency to flick coins with a roughly similar thrust on each toss and each human is, of course, the same height and has the same arm length (roughly) on every toss. That leads to the anecdotal conclusion that all tossings of the same coin will have roughly the same number of half spins. The only "random" factor in the process is then the starting condition; whether the coin is heads-up or not just prior to the toss. I have the feeling, completely unsubstantiated by any evidence save personal observations of my own behaviour on a very few occasions when I remembered to note it, that an human tossing a coin repeatedly will force a seemingly random selection of heads-up positions before tossing the coin "just for fairness' sake". In short, people fiddle the game to produce expected results. While this cooking of the books may not invalidate a single toss I suspect it biases experiments in repeated coin-tossing in favour of "randomness". I would really like to know if I'm right but I see absolutely no way of unequivocally proving the point either way. Qordil (talk) 17:11, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

 * The initial conditions that vary from one toss to the next, by the same person, are not just which coin face is initially pointing up. The precise direction of hand, thumb, and arm movement inevitably varies -- it's impossible for a person to make these identical on different tosses; also, the precise amount of energy imparted to the coin inevitably varies from toss to toss. And the nature of the coin toss is that the outcome is very sensitive to these slight variations in initial conditions. Duoduoduo (talk) 17:38, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

 * I agree that the initial conditions are unlikely to be identical apart from the obvious state of which side of the coin is facing up as the toss starts, but I have never been sure that coin tosses are sufficiently sensitive to small variations in thrust and angle to affect the outcome. I may, of course, be entirely wrong; intuition is an exceedingly poor guide to probability and randomness, as this very discussion and the subject matter under discussion show. Coins being tossed tend to be large, they tend to be fairly heavy and they tend not to be tossed with great force so I suspect the initial forcing conditions don't affect the result too much. Whether "too much" is "enough" to produce a chaotic system that is sufficiently sensitive to initial conditions to mimic a random "fair toss" or not is exactly what I would like to see tested. If it could be.

This intuitive feeling that coin tosses are sometimes forced by the tosser has bothered me sufficiently that I thought I would mention it. I would be exceptionally pleased if Science could put the notion to bed finally and forever someday. Qordil (talk) 17:56, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

 * You could test it yourself: flip a coin once, remembering how you flipped it and what the result was. (To make it fair, make sure it rotates at least three or four times.) Then do 100 more flips, each time trying to replicate your original flip. The null hypothesis is that the flips are independent, in which case the total number of heads is binomially distributed with probability parameter = 1/2. By Binomial distribution, the number of heads is close to normally distributed under the null, with mean = 50 and standard deviation = 5. So there's a 95% probability under the null that the number of heads will be in the range 50 plus or minus 1.96 × 5, or between 41 and 59 inclusive. If you're trying for heads and you get more than 59 heads, that's unlikely to have happened with fair independent coin tosses. Duoduoduo (talk) 20:01, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

circular logic
The offered proof in the article is fallacious itself, because it is Begging_the_question

consider "Explaining why the probability is $$\scriptstyle\frac{1}{2}$$ for a fair coin":

The fallacious gambler works under the assumption that probability is ever-changing, depending on the previous outcomes. Thus he would not assume

but rather something like
 * probability of 20 heads = 0.520
 * probability of 20 heads = [(1-x)*(0.5)]20

since for the fallacious gambler the probability of Heads decreases with every Heads.

The corrolary is that for the fallacious gambler a fair coin does not exist unless it has previously produced perfectly even results and even then it becomes biased again after the very next toss. The fallacious gambler cannot within his logic calculate 2 or more coin tosses using the same probability for each.

Hence the fallacy cannot be disproved using the toss of a fair coin, since the existence of such a coin is already contradicting the gambler's fallacy and it is rather unsurprising that any subsequent reasoning would do the same. BharatKulamarva (talk) 11:12, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

 * It seems like your argument is that the "fallacious gambler" uses "fallacious logic".....which is evidently true and is the basis of the Gambler's fallacy.

 * Certainly you must admit that fair coins exist. You can test it yourself by flipping coins and recording the number of heads/tails.  So indeed, as you said, the existence of such a coin contradicts the fallacious gambler's logic.  This does not mean such coins do not exist, rather it means that the gambler's fallacy is exactly just that, a fallacy.  Paul Laroque (talk) 01:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

 * Agreed. As I said: a fair coin does not exist for the fallacious gambler. Thus if a fair coin exists, the fallacious gambler is proven to be - well - fallacious.
 * My point though was: If I was a fallacious gambler, the paragraph in question would not be a proof to me, since it assumes the existence of a fair coin, which - being a fallacious gambler - I would deny.
 * Herein lies the heart of the problem of proving the fallacy. The existence of a fair coin is technically just an assumption, albeit an assumption that most reasonable people (including me) agree to be true and that the whole of classical probability theory builds upon.
 * Thus my reasoning that you cannot - strictly speaking - prove the fallacy, just illustrate its insanity. For example it would follow that - since all coins are biased - you could prepare dice for a competition by purchasing a lot of them and rolling them beforehand at home. You would then keep the dice that are "due" (e.g. had very little sixes) and take them to a competition. This absurd example should illustrate the fallacy especially since it exactly contradicts the concept of "lucky dice" which many gamblers believe in as well. --BharatKulamarva (talk) 11:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so it is very obvious that if we have a set of fair coin flips of TTT that the next flip has a .5 chance of being tails. But among the next two flips we have a more complex set of possible outcomes, i.e. TT, TH, HT, HH. So, the odds of getting a single heads in the two flips is 3/4, while the odds of getting only tails is 1/4. Am I missing something about the gamblers fallacy or does it only really apply to expectations of the initial or next result? If I'm not horribly misunderstanding the argument here, it should be clarified by linking to other articles, etc. And, I'm perfectly willing to help with clean up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andwats (talk • contribs) 07:21, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

 * BharatKulamarva is correct, the logic is circular, the thing being proved "the next toss has 50/50 chance" and the assumption "a fair coin exists and has a 50/50 chance on each toss" are the same, therefore it is question begging. Paul Laroque's example of how you can test for yourself if there exists "a fair coin" actually favours the gambler's fallacy because if you tossed a coin n times, and the result was 50/50, it doesn't need to show that each toss was 50/50 it could show that the nth toss was "due" as the gambler's fallacy tells us, and brought things back into balance. The fallacy doesn't lie in the math, but in the creation of the observed set but this is OR. The fact remains that the "proof" offered is circular and therefore worthless.

From a gambler point of view.
The theory is true, the math its accurate but in the real world and from a gambler point of view it doesn't work exactly like that. No physical system is 100% random, A coin or dice will have infinitesimal variations in the distribution of mass, shape... A roulette table would have hundreds if not thousands of variables affecting the odds, a poker slot machine has a pseudo random number generator.... The list goes on

For instance, a very well know method to bit the odds in roulette is to expend days or even weeks on a given table writing down the numbers, after you have obtained a significant sample its only a matter of entering the data on a computer and run an statistical analysis. You will always find a deviation, the ball has a slightly bigger tendency to fall on certain area of the wheel, then you calculate your playing strategy according to those statistics, if you play smart and long enough the house looses.

Casinos of course hate this kind of thing, they will ban you if they find out what you are doing. Roulette makers spend a great deal of time fine tunning the tables in order to minimize the effect and make the system as random as possible, random generators on gambling machines use huge base lists, dices are manufactured as uniformly as possible, shapes with tolerances on the 100s of millimeters... No matter how hard they try, Physical tolerances will cause a deviation from the mathematical odds. The goal is to make those variations small enough to prevent anybody from taking advantage of them, but they will always be there. Its an intrinsic characteristics of any real physical system.

I've been banned from casinos in Europe for playing black jack in the way they like less (Never cheated) and for using this tactic playing roulette, takes time and self discipline, They've got so good at building those devices that the money earned is in the best possible scenario just enough to make a living, because all the precautions taken the deviations are really small, a mistake will set you a long way back. Roulette is not a good game for a professional gambler but the method does work if done properly.

--70.186.170.117 (talk) 13:23, 15 January 2010 (UTC) Carl - Louisiana

 * I don't believe you have won money on roulette using this strategy. The idea that you could find the extremely marginal tendencies of a decent roulette wheel even with years of daily study seems very unlikely, but even if you could, this tendency would not begin to approach the house advantage. The house has a 5.3% edge in roulette--this is quite significant. Obviously the wheel is not so skewed that it is six percent more likely that the ball fall into a given pocket than it should. That would be one seriously warped wheel. Besides, the amount of time you would need to invest into studying it would be enormous to get a statistically significant sample. No, if you really have won money playing roulette, you are just very lucky.

 * Blackjack is different, because the house edge is very small if the player makes all the right bets (as determined by computers), only about 1% for a normal pack. By counting cards, one can theoretically wait to play until the pack is rich with aces, tens, and face cards, making blackjack likely enough that the odds are actually, temporarily, in the player's favor if the player bets correctly. So in principle, one can make only extremely low bets when the deck is not in her favor, and then bet enormous sums of money when it is, therefore making money overall. However, this is not usually a viable strategy for a number of reasons. For one thing, all casinos have table maximums and minimums, so you usually cannot vary your betting enough to overcome the house edge. Furthermore, casinos that suspect players of counting cards usually kick them out, so it must be very surreptitious, meaning one cannot simply sit there betting the minimum and then suddenly start betting thousands of dollars when the deck is good. That said, a few MIT kids did manage to pull it off a few times, and they are not the only ones. So it is impossible, but rare and difficult, and not viable in many casinos.

 * But neither of these has anything to do with the gambler's fallacy. That fallacy has to do with the belief that, say, a roulette wheel that has spun red five times in a row is bound to spin black next, whereas what you are describing is actually the opposite (since the roulette wheel spins red so much, it must be skewed toward red), and not significant enough to affect practical betting anyway. Eebster the Great (talk) 06:27, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

 * I don't agree with the article. Yes, while each time you get red, it was 50% chance, but consider that for you to get 6 reds in a row, is much smaller chance, than getting 5 reds and 1 black. If you know statistics, it would be smart of you to pick black, even though the events are unrelated, the chance of getting 6 reds in a row is still much smaller. This doesn't mean that you cannot get 6 reds in a row, there is a 50% chance, so you could very well lose. It's not logical at all to assume 100% that the next one will be black, but it is more likely. Things like 20 heads in a row, are more rare than 10 heads and 10 tails interlaced. 96.231.249.80 (talk) 20:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

 * It is true that 5 reds and 1 black in some order is more likely than six reds, but that's because 5+1 can be RRRRRB, RRRRBR, RRRBRR, RRBRRR, RBRRRR, BRRRRR — each of these is exactly as likely as RRRRRR but collectively they are six times as likely. Given RRRRR_, the final sequence is either RRRRRR or RRRRRB, equally likely, and your belief to the contrary is the gambler's fallacy. —Tamfang (talk) 21:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Why is it a fallacy? RRRRRB is simply more likely, than RRRRRR... There is still a 50% chance that R or B will be the 6th. But usually, objects and physics being random, and R and B having equal chance of getting picked, it seems likely that eventually a B should come up, or something is broken with the roulette table. 96.231.249.80 (talk) 04:34, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

 * It is not a fallacy to say that after five Rs, a B is likely to eventually come up. Actually, it's not just likely for B to eventually come up, it's 100% certain. Doesn't matter if the wheel is biased, doesn't matter what the previous spins were. The key however is the word "eventually". If you spin it ten thousand times you can bet your life that you'll get at least one B! The "gambler's fallacy" concerns whether or not B is more likely than R on a particular spin, not just "eventually". Because when a gambler bets, he is betting on a particular spin. I mean, you can't go into a casino and make a bet that "at least one of the next ten thousand spins will be B"! :-) --Steve (talk) 06:48, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

 * RRRRRB is not more likely than RRRRRR. To suggest otherwise is the very essence of the fallacy. It's easier to think in terms of flipping a coin: how would the coin know that heads came up five times in a row so that it should spin toward tails this time? It simply doesn't. If anything, RRRRRR is more likely than RRRRRB because a string of identical outcomes may indicate that the apparatus is not actually statistically unbiased. (However, a string of five even-chance events is not enough to suspect bias for a real coin or a professionally produced roulette wheel.) Probability is difficult to learn, and even those of us who have studied it for years have to actively suppress our cognitive biases at times. Evolution has wired the human brain to misestimate the probabilities of certain types of events. Understanding probability offers substantial benefits in our lives, so it is smart to learn from to the experts rather than saying they're wrong. The truth is sometimes unintuitive, but it's still the truth. (BTW, @Steve: I think it's fairly safe to say that nothing in the real world is actually 100% certain. However, I completely agree that it would be prudent to bet your life against the chance of 10 k sequential lands on red—provided you know that the wheel is fair and that it will remain fair. :) Gerweck (talk) 13:56, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

 * While RRRRRB is not more likely than RRRRRR, it is still a fact that eventually the colour will change. And if the string is already unusually long, we can assume that it will end soon.--77.12.23.146 (talk) 19:18, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

 * "It is still a fact that eventually the colour will change". No it isn't. The probability is 18/37 on each spin, and "unusually long" means very little. Believing things like this is the reason why the fallacy occurs.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 06:58, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

 * I think this is actually a very good point that is being raised. Gamblers do indeed practice this strategy, and it is also documented thoroughly in the statistical/mathematical literature on the subject.  There are several tests for bias documented in the statistical literature.  This prediction method is dealt with in the article in the section entitled "Non-example: Unknown probability of event", though this section could certainly be expanded with some more work.  The paper referenced in that section explains why betting on the most common outcome is the optimal prediction method under the assumption that biases may exist in the process (and certain other plausible assumptions about this bias).  SCF71 (talk) 8:26, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

 * This is not a good point. Roulette wheels are very precisely machined to have the least bias possible.  I'll admit that it is impossible to make a wheel completely without bias.  The miniscule default bias would exploitable if not for the casino edge.  Beating the 2.7% edge of a single-zero wheel would require a very large bias and a very large number of trials.  Wheels do gain even more bias over time, which is why casinos balance them on a daily or weekly basis.  Even if the wheel is only balanced monthly and the game is dealt at a reasonable speed (40 spins/hour) for 24 hours a day AND every single spin was tracked, that's still only 28,800 spins to detect a bias.  It's incredibly unlikely, even in those ideal circumstance, to detect a bias large enough to overcome the house edge. AddBlue (talk) 06:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Non-examples of the fallacy
The statement "This is how counting cards really works, when playing the game of blackjack." is erroneous. The (spurious) skill of card-counting for profit is not based on either remembering which individual card values have been previously dealt, or on calculating the ongoing probabilities of individual card values appearing. That this follows an example that uses a Jack (specifically, in lieu of a 10-value card generally), only serves to compound the error.
 * I would ask former members of the MIT Blackjack Team whether the statistical advantage conferred by card counting is spurious. I do agree that it is difficult to beat the house, both because few people possess the required faculties and because casinos take effective countermeasures. It's also not true that individual card values are ignored by all types of card counters. In particular, ace tracking has been used successfully by some professional gamblers. Gerweck (talk) 14:21, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Very first sentence false?
The first sentence of the article is "The Gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy (because its most famous example happened in a Monte Carlo casino in 1913)[1] or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that if deviations from expected behaviour are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process then these deviations are likely to be evened out by opposite deviations in the future."

I have a major problem with the way this is stated. In a very specific and quantitative sense, it IS true that deviations from expected behavior are likely to be evened out by future results - not by opposite deviations exactly, but simply by virtue of the fact that future results will average to the mean, and there will eventually be many more than them than the original deviation. That's called the law of large numbers, and it lies at the base of all of statistics.

So I suppose the article's first sentence isn't exactly wrong, but I think it's potentially very misleading. It ought to be re-phrased to make it clear that the fallacy is believing that the future results are in any way influenced by those already obtained, or to highlight more clearly the fallacious part in the sentence as is (which is that the deviations will be evened out not simply by more data, but specifically by opposite deviations).

Unless someone else has any objection, I'll re-write the first sentence to something like this: "The Gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy (because its most famous example happened in a Monte Carlo casino in 1913)[1] or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that if deviations from expected behaviour are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process, future deviations in the opposite direction are then more likely." (Can anyone think of a better term than "direction"?)   Waleswatcher (talk) 03:01, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

 * "it IS true that deviations from expected behavior are likely to be evened out by future results" Nope. They don't even out. Things only even out if you average them, but in many cases you're interested in (for example) the amount of money in your pocket, and that is not an average, it's a sum. That's not the same thing. The average converges, the sum diverges, it follows a drunkard's walk in fact, and gets further and further from the mean with repeated gambles.Rememberway (talk) 03:23, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

 * "Nope. They don't even out. Things only even out if you average them" Sorry, but the latter is *exactly* what I said.  You took part of the middle of a sentence from my comment, dropped the beginning and end, and then repeated the rest in your own words - so I'm not sure what your point was supposed to be.  My point is that someone reading the first sentence of the article as is now might well conclude that it's a fallacy to believe that the average will even out, when in fact it isn't.  Do you object to my proposed re-wording?  Waleswatcher (talk) 13:58, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

 * Sorry in advance for being a bit of a pedant, but that first sentence is still slightly incorrect. Gambler's Fallacy is the belief that a past independent trial will affect a future independent trial.  The difference there being that many people falsely believe a streak will continue, not just that the opposite will happen.  Examples of this in a casino abound, from people who believe they are on a winning "streak", particularly in craps, to baccarat players that wait for "runs" of Player or Banker wins and then bet that side, assuming the streak is bound to continue.  It's not incorrect to the point that I'd edit it, but since you brought it up... AddBlue (talk) 06:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

The story of the events at Monte Carlo Casino in 1913 is itself questionable. Something of this nature would surely have been reported in the press at the time, yet I have searched several online newspaper archives without finding any references to the event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StylusGuru (talk • contribs) 15:24, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Inverse gambler's fallacy
I removed a link to the inverse gambler's fallacy. The article with that title describes it as drawing the conclusion that there must have been many trials from observing an unlikely outcome. The rather different concept this article was referring to was the belief that a long run of heads means that the next roll is outcome is likely to be heads. MathHisSci (talk) 16:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yet let's have a look at the article content. "The probability of getting 20 heads then 1 tail, and the probability of getting 20 heads then another head are both 1 in 2,097,152." So, the probability of me getting heads that many times is ~ 1 in 2 million? Without ANY evidence to support either position, would the more rational assumption be the coin is not fair and heads is weighted? Since we talk about "fair coin" (no such thing, varying degrees of debris, weighting of the print, etc) and we didn't even consider fair toss, while it doesn't invalidate the fallacy, would you not agree it brings into question some of it's more common applications? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.178.244 (talk) 15:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Yes, the inverse gambler's fallacy, as this article defines it, can be seen as more rational than the usual version in practice, though not in the formal mathematical model. MathHisSci (talk) 21:39, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Psychology of Gambler's Fallacy
Here are some sources that I'm considering for this page, and what they will contribute to the page:

Burns, B.D. and Corpus, B. (2004). Randomness and inductions from streaks: "Gambler's fallacy" versus "hot hand." Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 11, 179-184. These researchers found that people are more likely to continue a streak when they are told that a non-random process is generating the results. The more likely it is that a process is non-random, the more likely people are to continue the streaks. Useful explanation of the types of processes that are more likely to induce gambler's fallacy.

Croson, R. and Sundali, J. (2005). The gambler's fallacy and the hot hand: Empirical data from casinos. The Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 30, 195-209. This is an observational study rather than an experiment, observing the behaviors of individuals in casinos. I found it interesting that they also observed the "hot hand" phenomenon in gamblers as well - and that it's not just restricted to basketball.

Oppenheimer, D.M. and Monin, B. (2009). The retrospective gambler's fallacy: Unlikely events, constructing the past, and multiple universes. Judgment and Decision Making, 4, 326-334. This article introduces the retrospective gambler's fallacy (seemingly rare event comes from a longer streak than a seemingly common event) and ties it to real-world implications. The researchers tie it to the "belief in a just world" and perhaps even hindsight bias (the article talks about how memory is reconstructive).

Rogers, P. (1998). The cognitive psychology of lottery gambling: A theoretical review. Journal of Gambling Studies, 14, 111-134. Ties the gambler's fallacy in with the representativeness and availability heuristic. Defines gambler's fallacy as the belief that chance is self-correcting and fair.

Roney, C.J. and Trick, L.M. (2003). Grouping and gambling: A gestalt approach to understanding the gambler's fallacy. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57, 69-75. Explains that simply telling people about the nature of randomness will not eliminate the gambler's fallacy. Instead, the grouping of events determines whether or not gambler's fallacy occurs. Very interesting, and possibly a good source for a possible "solutions" section.

Sundali, J. and Croson, R. (2006). Biases in casino betting: The hot hand and the gambler's fallacy. Judgment and Decision Making, 1, 1-12. Correlates hot hand and gambler's fallacy - people who exhibit one will also exhibit the other. Introduces the possibility of a construct underlying both of these.

One idea I had for possibly altering the structure of this article: dividing the "psychology" section into subsections by each psychological concept - biases, grouping, etc. Songm (talk) 21:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

If any of you would like to see some of the edits I'm planning for this page, you can check out my sandbox here. —Preceding undated comment added 01:11, 28 March 2012 (UTC).

philosophical point of view
It is entirely possible that the universe does have a 'memory' of events and that probability theory and the idea of randomness are not actually correct.

There is no way to prove probability theory. You can't prove probability theory by, for example, tossing a coin and counting results and comparing to expected results because you would actually have to use the theory to do that comparison. The argument becomes circular. It is just one of the axioms we just accept in science.

I work with probabilities and stats so I'm not saying it is wrong. I'm pretty sure it is right and it's a great tool. But, I do find it fascinating that it may well be false and there is no way of knowing if it is or isn't. There is, for example, no way to demonstrate or prove 'randomness'. We must simply state that a coin toss is random and accept it. There are tests for randomness, but there are many sets of numbers that pass randomness tests that are in fact not random, the famous example being the Mandelbrot set. These sets exist in nature frequently.

So maybe the gambler's fallacy is not so false after all.

Still I think it *probably* is :-p  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.78.32.22 (talk) 05:47, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Childbirth
"The probability of having a child of either gender is still regarded as 50/50." The idea that the probability is 50/50 is a fallacy. It is only roughly true, with respect to large populations. In human populations we see that there are slightly more male births than female ones, and it is believed that this difference is because more boy babies die before reaching reproductive age than girl babies. Thus the population has reached some sort of equilibrium, but it is an equilibrium of 50/50 at reproductive age, not birth. This is called Fisher's Principle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_principle According to Fisher the roughly 50/50 outcome is entirely dependent on having some individuals in the population who are genetically predispositioned to produce boys as offspring, while others are genetically predispositioned to produce girls. The outcome for populations says nothing about the expected sex ratio of offspring of individuals. Thus people who after having a series of children of the same sex who keep trying for the other, because they think in some sense 'they are owed one' are making the gamblers fallacy. But people who keep trying because they think that 50/50 are good odds, may be making a different error. They may be strongly biased to produce the sex they already have produced, and the odds of them getting the other one may be very small. As of now we have no way to tell, because the mechanisms which determine the sex of offspring are largely unknown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.224.196.196 (talk) 13:49, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Merge law of averages into this article
As far as I understand, this article is talking about the same concept as law of averages. Since the other article is shorter, would anyone be opposed to merging that article into this one? 173.181.83.109 (talk) 21:59, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

 * As far as I understand it, the Gambler's Fallacy is a psychological phenomenon, it is a failure to understand and to correctly use the "laws" of probability. As a matter of human psychology, it is not identical to the law of averages so having one article for each would seem to be more appropriate. It is like the subject of risk and the inability of people to correctly assess risk which would fall under psychological failings.Qordil (talk) 18:10, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Preaching to the choir
I'm just now writing a response to someone who's brought up a difficult and fallacious argument. It's related to this topic, so I wanted to see if I could refer them here. I cannot. The problem is that the article is not written for the casual reader, but for the accomplished statistician. There needs to be extended text at the beginning that explains in simple and compelling language why this is a fallacy.

From the backtalk in the comments, there are a fair amount of people who are convinced they are still right. (For example Carl from Louisiana, on Jan 15, 2010.) Eebster the Great responded, but was more or less taking the (correct) and somewhat sterile party line. I don't feel that's effective explaining to Carl and people like him why he's in error. For Carl, one of four things is happening. Either the gambling object is not quite "fair" because of manufacture or wear, or the house is intentionally cheating in his favor, or he is observing patterns where none have statistical significance, or he is mis-remembering what happened. Naturally, the last argument isn't going to sway any reader, but the others should alert casual readers that what they see as compelling evidence may be flawed. Leptus Froggi (talk) 20:31, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I recently developped a simulation tool to discuss the gambler's fallacy with a friend. It may be used to oppose some "factual" arguments to people who still consider their statement as true. If you think this simulation can be used in any way as an argument in this article, feel free to do it. I would be glad it serves a wider audience.

For more informations, refer to the README.md file and the section Examples, especially the `least` strategy which refer to the strategy of the gambler's fallacy.

Project : https://framagit.org/carrieje/gamblers-fallacy (User carrieje (unregistered)) 18:08, 31 December 2021 (UTC+1) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.12.161.143 (talk)

What if...
Suppose we have 6 heads in a row. What if the gambler bets not on what the next toss will be (with a resulting 50/50 probability), but on whether or not there will be a series of 7 heads in the game he plays (with the next toss completing the series)? Since the probability of 7 heads in a row is low, wouldn't it still be prudent to bet against it? And if not, why not? Try not to repeat the formulation of the fallacy or restate that the probability is still 50%. Explain, why a bet on the probability of 7 heads in a row is meaningless. What if we're talking about 69 previous heads (still assuming a fair coin) and the next toss is no. 70?89.12.84.0 (talk) 15:44, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, after a bit of thinking I got where I went wrong. The "unlikely" part has already happened. And while it could in principle get even unlikelier, it is divided from that further improbability by a small step of 1/2. Ignore the previous stuff :-)89.12.84.0 (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I see you answered your own question, but the key issue is conditional probabilities. Even people who can do a decent job of estimating probilities can get tripped up when the issue is coonditional probablities.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  16:44, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

False example for retrospective gambler's fallacy.
Another variety, known as the retrospective gambler's fallacy, occurs when individuals judge that a seemingly rare event must come from a longer sequence than a more common event does. For example, people believe that an imaginary sequence of die rolls is more than three times as long when a set of three 6's is observed as opposed to when there are only two 6's. This effect can be observed in isolated instances, or even sequentially. A real world example is that when a teenager becomes pregnant after having unprotected sex, people assume that she has been engaging in unprotected sex for longer than someone who has been engaging in unprotected sex and is not pregnant.[17]

The example is completely false. It compares looking at a dice roll and concluding something about previous dice rolls to pregnancy, but the analogy doesn't work at all. Being pregnant is instead analogous to "successfully" rolling 3 6's anytime in the sequence, not just as the very last roll. This is because having sex and not being impregnated that particular time doesn't undo being impregnated previously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.164.193.204 (talk) 23:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how pregnancy is relevant to the fallacy either. From what the article is describing, the fallacy occurs when a previous event is perceived to have an impact on the outcome of the next event. Pregnancy doesn't work this way. Having unprotected sex multiple times increases chances of pregnancy because 'you're buying more tickets' but also increases the chances of each individual attempt. Recalling from old lecture slides in university, the chance of pregnancy from an isolated case of unprotected sex is around 10%, however if you have unprotected sex each day for 30 days for example, the chances for each individual case goes up to 40% at least — Preceding unsigned comment added by Etceteralol (talk • contribs) 23:44, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

It appears the wording has been changed since then to be unambiguous (i.e. "on a given night"). Recommend archiving this section. 153.142.16.144 (talk) 04:45, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Recent Paper Supports the Gambler's Fallacy as Fact
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2627354

When you observe short sequences, the probability that a sequence will alternate is greater than 50%. Paraphrasing part of the paper, consider these coin flips (generated just now using a random generator at: http://www.mathgoodies.com/calculators/random_no_custom.html): 1001010101110 So we have: 6 zero's, and 6 one's. A perfect 50/50 as expected. But, the gambler's fallacy is not this probability, it is the probability that given a short sequence and a 1, what is the chance the the next value will also be a 1? In the above example, out of the 6 "ones", only 2 are followed by another "one". In the sequence above, two thirds of the time you will be better off switching, a predictive power of the next flip that is better than 50/50! If this sequence were extended out, then this probability would converge back to 50%. On the other hand, if you were to get more sequences of the same length, then these skewed probabilities would likely remain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dvanatta (talk • contribs) 08:50, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Re this edit: the first problem is that the Social Science Research Network looks like one of the many places where people can publish research online with little if any peer review. Unless probability theory is badly wrong, the probability of a 50-50 bet being successful remains at 50-50 every time. People have often tried to convince themselves otherwise, but that's the way it goes.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 15:30, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I've only read through page three, but the short answer is that your math is wrong. You aren't counting things corrrectly.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  15:37, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

While an interesting way to summarize the experiment, you are correct to say the possible proportions are: {0, ½, 1}

But the probabilities are: {3/8, 2/8, 2/8}

not {3/6, 1/6, 2/6}

The expected value, of course, is:

0*3/8+ .5*2/8+1 *2/8= 0+.25+.25= .50

Exactly as one might expect.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  15:48, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

 * Very short sequences can be misleading. It takes a large amount of trials to approximate a normal distribution curve accurately. The authors of the paper don't seem to have taken this into account.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:07, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Monte Carlo Casino example
Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide is no longer available, as it was pulled by the publisher in March 2013. It has been removed from the article as a source. As for the Monte Carlo example, where black came up 26 times in a row in August 1913, some sources regard this as an anecdote with doubtful authenticity. At 1 in 136.8 million, it is very unlikely, but of course not outright impossible. Here is a roulette wheel that came up red ten times in a row, but at 1 in 1347 this is much more plausible.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 13:51, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

I've been looking around for a proper source on this event. The new citation is a 2015 BBC article. If it's such a popular event, surely it must have a primary source? IrateSpecialist (talk) 23:52, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Monte Carlo Casino Odds
The odds were stated to be 1:136.8 million. However, that is getting specifically black 26 times in a row. It's not relevant that it was black; it'd make no difference if it had been red 26 times in a row. The "first" time it landed on black wasn't actually the first time, unless it was opening day within the first few rolls (and everyone happened to bet on that one). Rather, the "first" black was completely insignificant to the gamblers, and only became the "first" by being followed by 25 more. Therefore, I've corrected the odds to a black happening 25 MORE times after the "first" as 18/37 chance per roll, so 1 / 0.486486486^25 = 66,564,294.2. Roguetech (talk) 12:38, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This is correct, but if a person was betting on black continuously, the probability would be 136.8 million as stated.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 13:12, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Re this edit: when betting on red or black on a single zero roulette wheel, the probability of success is 18 out of 37, or p = 0.486. Writing it as $37⁄18$ implies that the fraction is 2.055, which seems obviously wrong.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:21, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think we're getting confused because of the wording of the sentence. The probability is p = ($18⁄37$)26-1 which is 1 in 66.6 million. I've adjusted the wording to be consistent with the other sentences in the article where the probability is given.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:38, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for our hint concerning my edit, ianmacm, but I cannot agree: 1. There are no other sentences in the article where the probability (of 26 blacks) is given. 2. If the calculcation was to be consistent, it would have to be the same as in the coin example: The probability of 21 heads in a coin experiment is ($1⁄2$)21. The probability of 26 blacks in a roulette experiment is ($18⁄37$)26. As there is no first head only becoming first because of other heads following (if you start a coin toss sequence and get heads, it is the first, no matter which outcomes follow), there is no first black only becoming black because there are more blacks following. Even if a sequence has a length of 1, the first element remains the first. 3. Roguetech's calculation of the probability of "a black happening 25 MORE times after the 'first'" is correct, but they should have adapted the sentence as well. As of now, it states that the probability of getting 26 blacks in a row is ($18⁄37$)251:, which is false. It denotes the probability of getting 25 blacks after the first trial (no matter if the outcome of the first trial was black or red, by the way). So you'd either have to change the sentence or the probability. Guy Bukzi Montag (talk) 13:05, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It depends on the wording. The probability of specifically 26 blacks in a row is 1 in 136.8 million. However, the crowd at the Monte Carlo casino would have been just as happy with 26 reds in a row, and when this is taken into account, the probability is 1 in 66.6 million.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 13:23, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Of course it depends on the wording. But the wording, as it is in the article, is wrong. Or the probability. They don't fit together. Guy Bukzi Montag (talk) 10:18, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * One way round this problem is to go back to the previous wording, which makes clear that the probability of black (and black only) 26 times in a row is 1 in 136.8 million. It starts to get more complicated when red or black is specified. However, I do believe that the current wording is correct, which is "the probability of a sequence of red or black occurring 26 times in a row is ($18⁄37$)26-1 or around 1 in 66.6 million." After a red or black has occurred with p=1, the follow up is red or black 25 times in a row. Possibly it could be changed to "either red or black" to make this clearer.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:54, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To be clear, the argument of "it doesn't matter if black or red" is just an easy way to look at/explain it. It simply doesn't make sense to count the "first" spin. If a casino only did roulette once per day, and only continued spinning if it landed on black, then there would be a 1:137 million chance of spinning it 26 times on any specific day. (This is the same as saying "if you flip a coin X number of times".) But that doesn't reflect reality of the "Monte Carlo" example, where they continue rolling regardless. So which is the "first" spin...? You can pick any of them.! For the sake of figuring "odds", you can pick any one as the "first" spin, with the only caveat being that you ignore all prior spins. If the spin you picked as being the first were red (or green), then the odds of getting 25 more blacks in a row would be 0%. So if you're measuring consecutive black spins, why pick red as the first one? There is no one specific set of 26 spins, rather for every 26 spins, there are 26 possible starting points. Another way to look at/explain it, there's no requirement for when the Monte Carlo players placed their bets. If caught in the "gambler's fallacy", you wouldn't bet on black if the prior spin was anything other than black. Ergo, the first spin must be black for the "gambler's fallacy" to apply. So in context of either a continuously operating casino, or any "gambler's fallacy", you would not count the first spin. I don't oppose it saying "red or black" (or "either red or black"), but only as a means to avoid arguments. @@Guy Bukzi Montag Note that the same argument doesn't apply to the "Example" of flipping coins, since it addresses specifically "a single toss", which must be a specific single toss. However, for the "Non-example" example of flipping coins, I agree that the odds should be computed on the standard of "more flips" rather than "total flips". Roguetech (talk) 18:41, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

In the sentence: "This was an extremely uncommon occurrence: the probability of a sequence of either red or black occurring 26 times in a row is $(18⁄37)^{26-1}$ or around 1 in 66.6 million", I think the emphasis "extremely uncommon" here is not right, as all 26 color sequences are equally rare $(18⁄37)^{26}$; it was not extraordinary to have 26 blacks in a row, I think the reason it induces the gambler's fallacy is, it being easily discernible and expressible for people in comparison to other equally rare 26 color sequences. The paragraph gives the notion of an extremely rare event occurred which I think can be a kind of gambler's fallacy. With respecting the discussions, I am offering an edit for the sentence as:

"Although the probability of any red/black permutation of size 26 is $(18⁄37)^{26}$ or 1 in 136.8 million, assuming the mechanism is unbiased, the streak of the same color creates a sense of extra-ordinariness and induces the gambler's fallacy." S.POROY (talk) 13:50, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Different formulation for the probability
This was added on my talk page by :

Hello, regarding the change I made suggesting that the probability of a sequence of either red or black occurring 26 times in a row is $2×(18⁄37)^{26}$, since the probability of the first occurrence of a red or a black is not 1, but 36/37, then the probability of 26 occurrences in a row is not 1 x $(18⁄37)^{26-1}$, it's (36/37) x  $(18⁄37)^{26-1}$, which is $2×(18⁄37)^{26}$.

As 2A02:2F04:A001:C400:450:9681:1692:82EE points out, the current wording assumes that the probability of red or black on the first spin is 1 (completely certain) when it is actually $36⁄37$ on a single zero roulette wheel. I think this is the more correct wording. This makes the probability of red or black appearing 26 times in a row in any given 26 spins 1 in 68.4 million rather than 1 in 66.6 million.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 19:19, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

What About Stochastic But Not Truly Random Phenomena?
A of systems in the physical world are stochastic but not truly random; e.g. economic growth, the stock market, sex ratios (I noticed that did get a mention), etc. Processes that seem random in the short and even the medium term will still converge back to a mean eventually, usually in no more than 10-20 years. I think the article should acknowledge this more. Is there really such a thing as true randomness outside of contrived human games and particle physics? Heck, I've read papers on random number generators that make truly random sequences, and it's not easy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joeedh (talk • contribs) 20:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

 * John von Neumann famously said that "Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." For the purposes of everyday probability theory, events like the toss of a coin, the throw of dice and the spin of a roulette wheel are considered to be random. It's never quite that simple, but events like the ups and downs of the stock market cannot be examined with basic probability theory.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 05:21, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

January 2019
Re this edit: there is a large amount of philosophy and very little mathematics in this addition. As far as mathematicians are concerned, the fallacy is real and occurs when a person falsely believes that non-dependent random events will even out in some way, which they are under no obligation to do. This is similar to previous attempts to undermine the fallacy with philosophical reasoning that has little to do with the underlying mathematics. I'm also worried by the use of Social Science Research Network as a source, because this is a preprint service, where people can upload anything they like without any effective peer review. Is this really suitable for the article?-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 17:47, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Don't even bother engaging, this is a continuation of the editor's attempts from a year ago to "to determine how long it takes for an anarchic experiment in democratic knowledge accumulation to become, as eventually they always do, a cult of a few restricting knowledge to acceptable forms". Toohool (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

 * Here is my final two cents on the issue: If two events are assumed to be independent and random, assuming that they will even out over a given period is a fallacy. In fact it is worse than a fallacy, it is just plain wrong. Likewise, if events A and B are assumed to occur at random, there is no advantage in choosing A or B and the choice is arbitrary. There have been repeated attempts to muddy the waters on these issues by introducing philosophical lines of reasoning that ignore these two principles. This is not conceptual dogmatism, it is just how the mathematics works.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 05:50, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Selective reporting section
Referring to this revert. are you saying you're going to get the book? Because as I've indicated, I have read the book. I don't remember the precise numbers - for example it could be 6 championships in 8 years instead of 5 championships in 7 - but I remember the essence of what was written. Banedon (talk) 06:46, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

 * Going from memory obviously isn't ideal. I had hoped it would be on Google Books; it is but you can't look inside it.  The book can be purchased on Amazon  but I don't have a copy.-- ♦Ian Ma c  M♦  (talk to me) 06:52, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I do. The puzzle in question was about how one guy was attempting to impress a woman by boasting about how his team had won X championships in Y years. The woman sarcastically congratulated the guy for winning in year Y and commented that the guy must've been so happy after his team failed to win in year Y+1. The guy apologized for not recognizing an "expert" at the game. The woman said she knew nothing about it. Puzzle asked for how it's possible. The solution gives the explanation in the text, and said the same thing about politicians & unemployment. Banedon (talk) 08:01, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
 * If you have a copy of the book, then why are you going by memory? It looks like you are the editor who introduced the example of unemployment statistics to the article, and now you're saying that the same Guinness Book of Mindbenders you originally cited gives a better example of something not being an example of the gambler's fallacy? Toohool (talk) 01:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Because I don't have the book anymore. I inserted the original section, then figured perhaps the other example is better and so changed it. Now tell me: why are you questioning my motivations? Why aren't you looking at the text and commenting on which is better? Banedon (talk) 01:58, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Because I'm skeptical about the whole paragraph. A half-remembered passage from a book that doesn't look like a very reliable source for any particular topic, about an example that it's not entirely clear is relevant to the article. Toohool (talk) 02:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I've ordered a copy of the book. Then we'll have a look at what it says. As a general rule, you should not use a book as a source unless you can lay your hands on it and quote from it directly.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 05:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The book says...
OK, I have now got a copy of the book. There are 109 puzzles in it, and I can't find anything that refers to the Gambler's fallacy. So I have added Failed verification and will remove it unless a specific reference can be found.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 17:16, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The book does not call it "gambler's fallacy" (neither does the Martin Gardner book also cited in the section, by the way). But I am 100% certain the puzzle described above is there. As I remember it was in the first half of the book. If you can't find it, I'll find it myself in about two months. Banedon (talk) 21:32, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but this now needs a direct quote from the book. I've removed it from the article.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 05:17, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * What kind of direct quote are you looking for? Like, the entire text of the puzzle? Banedon (talk) 05:18, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * There are 109 puzzles. Which one is it? If you cannot say, it is because you do not have a copy of the book to hand.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 05:22, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * You've proven to be sufficiently annoying that I went and acquired the book myself. It is puzzle 2. The fact that the puzzle is literally on the first page of the main text makes me question if you made a good faith attempt to find it. Banedon (talk) 05:38, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It's in the solution of Cricket for Americans. So apologies if I missed this. The Guinness Book of Mindbenders is a book of puzzles and their solutions, it isn't really a mathematics textbook. Looking at the exact quote, it is not strictly an example of the gambler's fallacy because it is not based on probability theory. It is more about selective citing of statistics or cherry picking to make them look good.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 05:53, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * That's why the text was in a section on non-examples of the Gambler's fallacy. Banedon (talk) 05:54, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * There are WP:TOPIC problems because it isn't an example of gambler's fallacy. It doesn't give specific probabilities for the events. If these remain constant, it is an example of the fallacy if a person believes that they are influenced by past results. Cherry picking is something different.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 06:02, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's why it is a non-example. Consider this example since it's more direct. Suppose there are two teams, Oxford and Cambridge, who are equally skilled. They play each other every year. I tell you that Cambridge has won the last eight years from 2012-2019. What are the odds that Cambridge will win in 2020? That would be 50% - it's the essence of the Gambler's fallacy. What are the odds that Cambridge won in 2011? As this source shows, that probability is not 50%. Banedon (talk) 06:05, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Sports betting is not the same as probability theory. The toss of a fair coin is always p = 0.5. If Cambridge has a better team than Oxford, they are more likely to win. In the 2018 men's boat race, Cambridge were quoted at 4/11, while Oxford were quoted at 2-1. 4/11 is an implied probability of 73.3%, while 2-1 is an implied probability of 33.3%. This might seem counterintuitive when there are only two teams, but sports betting works like this. The figures do not add up to 100% because the bookmakers always make a profit regardless of who wins, this is because the odds are over-round.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 06:34, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that's related. The example I gave isn't about sports betting, and it explicitly assumes that the two teams are equally skilled. Banedon (talk) 06:39, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Gambler's fallacy is based on probability theory, such as red and black on a single zero roulette wheel always being p = 0.486. In real world situations like football matches and tennis matches, it is never quite that simple. Laying odds on a single event is not the same thing as gambling in a casino all day long, as the 2018 Boat Race can happen only once.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 06:54, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * At that I think we're at an impasse which can only be settled by the participation of more editors. Banedon (talk) 10:38, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

The paragraph should just be removed unless someone can cite a reliable source that shows the need to distinguish this type of example from the gambler's fallacy. As it is, the example has no overt connection to the article topic and its inclusion is original research. Toohool (talk) 17:50, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Coil-Toss analogy not accurately applied to Gambler's Fallacy; real-life Gambler's Fallacy is not accurately depicted, anyways, and not really a fallacy
In the context of "runs" it is not required to have a 20-item run of the same outcome in order to be considered a run for gambling purposes:

Yes, it's true that the 21st coin flip has a 50/50 chance of being heads even if it was heads the last 20 times. However, the chances of generating 21 heads in a row is NOT equally likely as having 20 heads and a tails in terms of gambling. There is only 1 way you can have 21 heads in a row, but there are 21 different ways you can have 20 heads and a tails in the run. The traditional notion of "the chance of getting a tails is going up" after a long run containing mostly heads is actually a correct notion, not a fallacy, because truly-random game outcomes do eventually approach a normal distribution of outcomes and you need to compare your current run to a theoretical normal run in order to visualize the likelihood of future outcomes.

IN reality, the majority of gamblers consider a lucky run to potentially include some losses as long as the wins highly-outweigh those losses. The real "gambler's fallacy" is not that "The next one will be tails" but rather "I should be seeing *more* tails soon" because runs in gambling are most often mixtures of results, not straight runs of perfectly uniform outcomes. A "run" in gambling can be a mixture of wins and loses that leans heavily toward wins, and in a chance-based game the longer you play the more likely your outcomes will approach a normal distribution.

The real-world "gambler's fallacy" is the assumption that a string of random events will eventually achieve a normal distribution of outcomes - that's not a fallacy at all. 50.239.107.122 (talk) 18:33, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

 * The key word here is "eventually". There is no fixed amount of time that would guarantee a 50-50 split of heads and tails. The probability on each individual toss is always p = 0.5.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 05:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

"Is the gambler's fallacy really a fallacy?"
Re this edit: the simple answer to the question "Is the gambler's fallacy really a fallacy?" is "yes". As the coin toss example in the article says, "When flipping a fair coin 21 times, the outcome is equally likely to be 21 heads as 20 heads and then 1 tail. These two outcomes are equally as likely as any of the other combinations that can be obtained from 21 flips of a coin. All of the 21-flip combinations will have probabilities equal to 0.521, or 1 in 2,097,152. Assuming that a change in the probability will occur as a result of the outcome of prior flips is incorrect because every outcome of a 21-flip sequence is as likely as the other outcomes." Considering a series of events does not alter the probability of individual random events. I'm also concerned about a potential conflict of interest here. This section is giving way too much prominence to a single paper, which leads to problems with WP:DUE.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 19:18, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Roulette is not a good example
because good shooters can increase the probability of hitting a desired number significantly by training. This skill is a part of their profession, to defeat systematic big bettors.--2400:4050:95C3:2B00:207A:3830:B1F7:3D98 (talk) 01:02, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

 * Modern casinos go to considerable trouble to ensure that roulette wheels are random, while the croupiers are instructed to spin the wheel and throw the ball with a different amount of strength each time. This suggestion also implies that the croupiers are acting in bad faith, and would require a reliable source.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 08:04, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Childbirth section
This section refers to Laplace having published A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities in 1796. The article Pierre-Simon Laplace (under Inductive probability) gives a date of 1814 for this work. In Chapter 1 - Introduction - of this edition, Laplace refers to the essay as a development of a lecture he had given in 1795. It looks like this reference may have conflated the lecture and the essay. How should we handle this? Autarch (talk) 01:39, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

d'Alembert's system
Wikipedia "d'Alembert's system" redirects to this page. I think that that is a bad mistake. d'Alembert's system is not such a bad system. It does not really have anything to do with the gambler's fallacy, as far as I know. I mean: I'm not sure that d'Alembert himself believed in that fallacy. Richard Gill (talk) 12:00, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

 * This source says (correctly in my view) that d'Alembert's betting system is "a prime example of the Gambler’s Fallacy". It is based on the assumption that 50-50 bets should even out over a period of time, but there is no guarantee that they will. In practice, the system has no memory and the probability remains at 0.5 every time the event occurs.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:17, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

The source does not say what d’Alembert’s motivation for his source was. I agree that you could motivate it that way, and you would usually be wrong. Whether it’s a good or a bad system depends on what you are after. Money? Fun? Do you need a particular amount of money with the biggest possible chance, or something else? I would like to see a separate article about the system and reference’s to d’Alembert’s own work. Richard Gill (talk) 16:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

 * I've now discovered that the d'Alembert system is *erroneously* attributed to d'Alembert. It should not be called "d'Alembert's system" at all. Richard Gill (talk) 17:51, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

 * Also, d'Alembert comes out very well in a comparison with other gambling systems. If you must gamble, it is not a bad choice. "Table 3 thus reveals the magic of the d’Alembert. Though it lags behind in terms of mean upside return for small goals, it matches Labouchere in terms of martingaling ratio and requires fewer rounds of play on average to achieve the goal. But the d’Alembert improves consistently as the goal becomes more ambitious. For a desired gain of at least 5% of the initial capital, d’Alembert requires more time to reach the goal, but does so with higher frequency and by requiring the gambler to take less money out of his pocket. d’Alembert also competes with le tiers et le tout on mean upside return, even though TT is designed to produce large gains." https://www.researchers.one/article/2020-08-32 "Risk is random: The magic of the d'Alembert", Harry Crane, Glenn Shafer Richard Gill (talk) 18:00, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

 * The d'Alembert betting system may be an example of Stigler's law of eponymy. In Croix ou Pile d'Alembert wrote that in two tosses of a fair coin, the probability that heads will appear at least once is $2⁄3$. This isn't correct, as there are four possible outcomes, making the answer $3⁄4$. The betting system is also known as Martingale, and people are advised not to try this in real life because they can lose money very quickly.-- ♦Ian Ma c  M♦  (talk to me) 20:52, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

 * ah, interesting. The d’Alembert is sometimes grouped with other systems called collectively martingale systems, but only one of them is “the” classic martingale system. With *the* martingale people rapidly do lose a lot of money. But not so much with d’Alembert. See Crane and Shafer. Richard Gill (talk) 03:20, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Clarification on "probability" definition & calculations
Relevant to several discussions I'm seeing here, and in anticipation of future discussions, there are a few points that may need clarification:

First, "probability" is about *future* or *hypothetical* events. It is the mathematical likelihood that an event (or combination of events grouped together) will happen in the future or in a hypothetical situation. After an event has happened, by definition the probability then equals 100%, and equations for probability no longer apply. In non-mathematical terms, probability is the degree of certainty that a future/hypothetical event will happen. 100% equals complete certainty. For an event that has already happened, the degree of certainty is 100%. The probability of an observed past event/outcome is automatically set to 100%.

Also, please note that probability equations will often state conditions (e.g.; "assume a fair coin"). For a real-life situation, this doesn't mean you should always assume the condition is true. It means that if the condition has been met (e.g.; a "fair coin" has been confirmed to be true), then the probability equation applies. If the condition has not been met (or is not certain) then the equation provides an estimate at best.

Additionally: As with all things mathematical, adding a human variable makes things messy. People are not machines. Physical tasks (e.g., a coin flip) depend on human physical mechanics which is often inconsistent. This type of variability becomes less significant if the task is repeated numerous times and/or by numerous subjects. Also, the stated assumptions for a mathematical equation (such as "fair coin") can only be met if the human is able/willing to meet the condition. In this example with gambling, ethically questionable behavior is a variable that can render a mathematical calculation useless. Basically, humans ruin everything. You're welcome. :-)

Hope that helps clarify probability equations and how/when they're applied. Betsy Rogers (talk) 22:37, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Loot boxes and pity timers.
If you know the exact rate a pity timer pays out, then you can calculate the minimum number of high value items and not Gambler's Fallacy. For example, in Hearthstone there are two pity timers for Legendary Cards. One at the beginning of expansion requires a Legendary card within the first 10 packs. Other than that it requires a Legendary within every 30 pack openings. So buying 100 packs at the beginning of the expansion, your guaranteed 4 Legendary cards at minimum. One within the first 10 and 3 within the next 90 at minimum. https://esports.gg/guides/hearthstone/hearthstone-pity-timer/ 2605:A601:A103:BB00:79:2283:79B5:749F (talk) 22:58, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Gambler's fallacy


text: Category:Calculus of variations

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Category:Calculus of variations


text:
Talk:Myers–Briggs Type Indicator/to do

 * This todo list very out of date and is no longer included in the main talk page. Instead the content has been pasted into Talk:Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

History
Jung first wrote of two distinct differences in personality in 1913, in what he later described as his "...need to define the ways in which my outlook differed from Freud's and Adler's." In 1921, Jung extrapolated on his ideas of introversion and extraversion in his work Psychological Types, and two years later the work was translated from german into english.

Two years later, Myers's family adopted Jung's ideas into their home and became avid "type-watchers," testing Jung's theory among family and friends for the next 2 decades, until the United States entered World War II in 1941.

 * Jung, Carl Gustav. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Vintage Books: New York, 1965. p. 207.
 * "Myers, Isabel Briggs (1970). Personal letter to Mary McCaulley. The MBTI Qualifying Program: The Center for Applications of Psychological Type, 2004. p. 20.
 * Myers later described her motivation for starting the type indicator as thus: "In the darkest days of World War II when the Germans were rolling irresistibly along and my shoulders ached with trying to hold them back and a horrible sinking feeling lived in the pit of my stomach, the thought came to me one day (I was making my bed at the time) that by letting them spoil my life that way i was helping them win, bringing destruction to pass by my own doing...What I did, as it turned out, was the Type Indicator."

title: Talk:Myers–Briggs Type Indicator/to do


text:
User:Alterego/to do

 * Man Overboard
 * Master Helmsman
 * David Keirsey
 * Isabel Myers
 * Katherine Briggs
 * Pediatric Oncology
 * Tecate
 * Yann Teirsen (needs work)
 * Personality Psychology is a big mess of non-factual bullshit.

title: User:Alterego/to do


text:
Whina Cooper

Dame Whina Cooper (9 December 1895 – 26 March 1994) was a respected kuia (Māori elder), who worked for many years for the rights of her people, and particularly to improve the lot of Māori women. She is remembered for leading the 1975 Māori land march from Te Hāpua to Wellington, a distance of 1,100 km, at the age of 79.

Her wide influence and nationally recognised activity led her to be acknowledged with awards in both the British (Imperial) and New Zealand Royal Honours Systems, and by her own people, who bestowed the title Te Whaea o te Motu ('Mother of the Nation') upon her. She is the subject of the 2022 film Whina.

Early life
Whina Cooper was born Hōhepine Te Wake, daughter of community leader and Catholic catechist Heremia Te Wake and Kare Pauro Kawatihi, of the Te Rarawa iwi, at Te Karaka, Hokianga.

From an early age, she showed an interest in her father's role, and in history and genealogy. Her education began at Whakarapa Native School. In 1907, she attended St Joseph's Māori Girls' College. After high school, she returned to Whakarapa (later Panguru) where her father wanted her to enter into an arranged marriage with Tureiti Te Heuheu Tukino V, leader of Ngāti Tūwharetoa. Cooper refused, and instead worked at a local co-operative store. She worked as a teacher for a brief time, at Pawarenga Native School. However, as one of only three teachers, she became frustrated, and found her time stretched between teaching and helping her own community. She left teaching in 1914 and was a housekeeper at the Catholic presbytery of Rawene for two years. She kept her Catholic Christian faith her whole life.

1914–1935: Whakarapa
Cooper's first involvement in politics was in the form of a land dispute over an area of leased mudflats in around 1914. The farmer, Bob Holland, who rented the land, wanted to drain the estuary for farming. That would have obstructed current use of the land by local iwi for gathering seafood and racing horses during the drier months. Heremia challenged the lease in court, and Cooper led a group of protesters to fill in Holland's drains. The protesters were eventually charged with trespassing, but they had stalled events long enough for Heremia to be successful, and the lease was withdrawn by the Marine Department.

In 1916, she returned to work at the co-operative store, and around this time, met her first husband, Richard Gilbert, of Ngāti Wai. She married him on 10 May 1917, with only her parents' knowledge, which led to some unhappiness with her wider family and community, who felt they should have been consulted. After her parents died, they left the family home, and moved to family land at Te Karaka, where they had to build their own home. By 1920, they had two children, and were able to borrow money from a local priest to purchase her father's home and farm at Whakarapa and the local store. There, she played a leading role in business and the community, including in 1923 calling a hui that led to the name of Whakarapa being changed to Panguru. Her community leadership impressed politician Sir Āpirana Ngata, who invited her to a national hui in 1932. She worked alongside him to promote Māori land development programmes in the Hokianga. Through him, she also met William Cooper of Ngāti Kahungunu, who became her second husband after Richard Gilbert died of cancer in 1935.

1949–1969s: Auckland
She moved to Auckland in 1949 when her second husband, William Cooper, died. Her political activity changed from local to national. In September 1951, she was elected first president of the new Māori Women's Welfare League "which was able to improve things notably for Maori women", working on health, housing, education, and welfare.

In 1957, she stepped down as president, and the annual conference rewarded her with the title Te Whaea o te Motu ("Mother of the Nation"). During the 1960s, she worked on a local level around Auckland, but kept largely out of the national spotlight.

1975: Land March
This changed in 1975 when a coalition of Māori groups asked her to lead them in a protest against the loss of Māori land. She agreed, proposing a Hīkoi (a symbolic march) from the northern tip of the North Island to Parliament in Wellington at the other end of the island.

During September and October 1975, the nearly 80-year-old Cooper again became nationally recognised, walking at the head of the Māori land march from Te Hāpua to Wellington, a distance of 1,100 km. The slogan of the march was "not one more acre of Maori land"; they demanded acknowledgement of property rights under the Treaty of Waitangi.

Honours and awards

 * In the 1953 Coronation Honours, Cooper was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the Māori people.
 * In the 1974 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to Māori welfare and culture.
 * In the 1981 New Year Honours, Cooper was further promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the Māori people.
 * In 1990, Cooper received the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal.
 * In the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours, she became the twentieth appointee to the Order of New Zealand, New Zealand's highest civil honour.
 * In 1993 she was awarded the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal.

Death and legacy
Cooper returned to Panguru in the Hokianga in 1983 and died there, aged 98, in 1994.

Her legacy includes calling the 1923 hui that led to the name of Whakarapa being changed to Panguru.

She is remembered as a leader who helped to shape New Zealand legislation relating to Māori people, as well as helping to develop the community in Auckland. However she is most remembered for winning over the hearts of so many people when she led the 1975 land march, in both Māori and Pākehā communities.

She has also served as an inspiration to other Māori women, such as Tiahuia Abraham, who has been a member of the Māori Women's Welfare League for 53 years.

Memorials
On 3 February 2020, a memorial at the Waipuna Marae was unveiled in Panguru, Hokianga, in the presence of prime minister Jacinda Ardern. The bronze statue was a sculptural representation of a famous photograph of Cooper, holding the hand of her granddaughter Irenee Cooper, as they were starting the 1975 land march. Her son, Joe Cooper, unveiled the statue. Ardern promised that her story would be included in the new school history curriculum.

Honorific eponym
In 2020, the tunnel boring machine that is being used to construct the twin tunnels of the City Rail Link in Auckland between Mount Eden station and Aotea station was named "Dame Whina Cooper".

Film
Cooper is the subject of a biographical film called Whina, which was released in selected cinemas on 23 June 2022. The film was directed by James Napier Robertson and Paula Whetu Jones. Cooper was portrayed by Miriama McDowell and Rena Owen, with the former portraying an adult, and the latter an elderly, Cooper.

Television
Whina Cooper was the focus of the documentary, Whina, Te Whaea O Te Moto – Mother of the Nation (1992) by Bryan Bruce. Bruce also featured footage of the Whina Cooper-led Maori land march of 1975 in The Bridge (2002), a television documentary about the history of the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

title: Whina Cooper


text:
User talk:Watersrw

Welcome to the Wikipedia
Here are some links I thought useful:

 * Tutorial
 * Help desk
 * Foundation issues
 * Policy Library
 * Utilities
 * Cite your sources
 * Verifiability
 * Wikiquette
 * Civility
 * Conflict resolution
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 * Brilliant prose
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Feel free to contact me personally with any questions you might have. The Village pump is also a good place to go for quick answers to general questions. You can sign your name by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~.

Be Bold!

[[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 11:26, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chick Publications
Please remember that you must cite your sources (credible, unbiased sources: see Verifiability) and remain NPOV when editing articles. For example, asserting that a person has a doctorate when there is no credible evidence to suggest this would be against Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. I realize you're probably zealous about the article in question, but actively fighting against other editors (for example reverting/removing their edits) instead of attempting to work with them to come to a consensus is counterproductive. To that end I would encourage you to engage in discussion on the talk page. Reene✎ 11:41, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Watersrw


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fighter Compare

Fighter Compare
Umm. This doesn't seem to be the correct place, the writer's dedication seems quite good but the title doesn't seem an accurate description of the article, its extraordinarily oddly worded, with the entire article reaking of POV and it's not in the slightest... encyclopedic. Might be a speedy candidate. Estel 11:27, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - --Ejstarchuk 11:30, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Isn't there a page 'Wikipedia isn't a buyers' guide for military hardware'? Original research, POV, call it what you will but delete it. Dbiv 11:55, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * redirect to already existing Comparison of 2000s fighter aircraft --Rlandmann 13:09, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Actually, yeah, the title is as irredeemable as the rest of the article. Just delete --Rlandmann 05:57, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete with extreme prejudice. PoV, almost an ad. Wyss 20:48, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Just delete - no need for a redirect, because the title is very poor. Cdc 21:36, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)


text: User talk:81.153.42.98

title: User talk:81.153.42.98


text:
Paul Henry (painter)

Paul Henry (11 April 1876 – 24 August 1958) was an Irish artist noted for depicting the West of Ireland landscape in a spare Post-Impressionist style.

Biography
Henry was born at 61 University Road, Belfast, Ireland, the son of the Rev Robert Mitchell Henry, a Baptist minister (who later joined the Plymouth Brethren), and Kate Ann Berry.

Henry began studying at Methodist College Belfast in 1882 where he first began drawing regularly. At the age of fifteen he moved to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He studied art at the Belfast School of Art before going to Paris in 1898 to study at the Académie Julian and at Whistler's Académie Carmen.

He married the painter Grace Henry in 1903 and returned to Ireland in 1910. From then until 1919 he lived on Achill Island, where he learned to capture the peculiar interplay of light and landscape specific to the West of Ireland. In 1919 he moved to Dublin and in 1920, he was one of the founders of the Society of Dublin Painters, originally a group of ten artists. Henry designed several railway posters, some of which, notably Connemara Landscape, achieved considerable sales. He separated from his wife in 1929. His second wife was the artist Mabel Young.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Henry was Ireland's most renowned artist, significantly shaping the popular image of the west of Ireland. Although he appears to have stopped experimenting with his technique after leaving Achill, and his range is limited, he produced a substantial body of fine images whose familiarity attests to their influence.

Henry's use of colour was affected by his red-green colour blindness. He lost his sight during 1945 and did not regain his vision before his death.

A commemorative exhibition of Henry's work was held at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1973 and the National Gallery of Ireland held a major exhibition of his work in 2004.

A painting by Henry was featured on an episode of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, broadcast on 12 November 2006. The painting was given a value of approximately £40,000–60,000 by the roadshow. However, due to the buoyancy of the Irish art market at that time, it sold for €260,000 on 5 December 2006 in James Adams' and Bonhams' joint Important Irish Art sale.

He died at his home at 1 Sidmonton Square, Bray, County Wicklow, and was survived by his wife, Mabel.

Work in collections

 * Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo
 * Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (including Landscape; 1923)
 * Musée du Luxembourg
 * National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
 * Ulster Museum, Belfast
 * Hunt Museum, Limerick

title: Paul Henry (painter)


text:
Patrick MacDowell

Patrick MacDowell (12 August 1799 – 9 December 1870) was a Belfast-born British sculptor operating through the 19th century.

Life
MacDowell was born in Belfast in 1799. His father died whilst he was young and the family lived in relative poverty.

From 1807 to 1811 he boarded at a school in Belfast, run by an engraver named Gordon, who encouraged his attempts at drawing, and from 1811 to 1813 he was under the tuition of a clergyman in Hampshire.

Around 1811 he moved with his mother to Hampshire in England, where they had relatives. In 1813, aged 14 (the then standard age to begin apprenticeships), he was apprenticed to a coach-builder in London. However, his master went bankrupt and his training as a coach-builder ended abruptly. During this time he was lodging in the house of Pierre Francois Chenu, the sculptor. It is presumed that this engendered an interest in sculpture within the young MacDowell.

On the recommendation of John Constable the painter, he went to the Royal Academy Schools and he exhibited at the Academy from 1822 until his death.

He was elected a Member on 10 February 1846 and presented as his diploma work a "Nymph.".

MacDowell died at his home in Wood Lane, Highgate, London on 9 December 1870 and was buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery. His gravestone incorrectly records the year of his death as 1871, not 1870.

Other works
MacDowell's works include a statue of Sir William Brown in the Great Hall of St George's Hall, Liverpool. His life-size memorial, in marble, to the young Earl of Belfast (died 1853) showing the deceased on his deathbed attended by his mother, was in Belfast Castle Chapel. It was moved to Belfast City Hall.

A statue of Sir Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth by MacDowell stands in the centre of the Greenwich Maritime Museum.

His last major work was the Europe allegorical group at the Albert Memorial in London.

 * Monument to Catherine Spurway at Milverton, Somerset (1845)
 * Statue of the Earl of Warren in the House of Lords (1850)
 * Statue of Almeric in the House of Lords (1850)
 * Statue at the grave of William Turner in St Paul's Cathedral (1851)
 * Monument to the Marchioness of Donegal in Belfast Castle Chapel (1855)
 * Statue of the Earl of Belfast in Belfast Free Library (1855)
 * Statue of William Pitt the Younger in the Palace of Westminster (1857)
 * Statue of the Earl of Chatham in the Palace of Westminster (1857)
 * Statue of Viscount Fitzgibbon in Limerick (1858) replaced in 1916 by a monument to the Easter Uprising
 * Statue of Sir William Brown at St George's Hall, Liverpool (1858)
 * Statue of Lord Plunket in the Four Courts, Dublin (1863)
 * Statue of Earl of Eglinton for St Stephen's Green in Dublin (1866), blown up by the IRA in 1958

title: Patrick MacDowell


text: Category:Drinking culture

title: Category:Drinking culture


text:
User talk:Zbd

Hey there. I just noticed that your latest article was imported from another source. If you own or have permission to use the copyright for this material, please indicate this on the talk page of your article. Otherwise, we can't accept it here. If you want to rewrite the article in your own words, please do so on the "/Temp" subpage of the article. Also, regardless of whether this article infringes on copyright, we welcome any other original contributions you may wish to make. Thanks! - Vague | Rant 11:33, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Bangladesh
Hi,

I just reverted one of your edits to Bangladesh history. You commented that you removed politically motivated information. I reverted for two (non-political :)) reason:

 * Coherence of the sentence Hence 26 March is considered the Independence Day of Bangladesh. was lost due to the edit.
 * Whether Ziaur Rahman was a president then or not became unclear. Also obviously the fact that Ziaur Rahman became the president much later doesn't seem to be politically motivated.

Much of this article was achieved after long debates. So, I'd personally request you to discuss before editing this further. Hope you'll understand. Of course, please let me make it clear that if the information present now is politically motivated - which it might be since it's only work of erroneous human beings - I'd be glad to re-construct it in line with NPOV.

Urnonav 05:45, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Abahattha
A tag has been placed on Abahattha, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. If you plan to add more material to the article, I advise you to do so immediately. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources which verify their content. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait a while for you to add contextual material, please affix the template  to the page and state your intention on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. FreplySpang 20:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Copyright issue with Asiatic Society of Bangladesh
Hello. Concerning your contribution, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. This article or image appears to be a direct copy from http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/A_0327.htm. As a copyright violation, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh appears to qualify for speedy deletion under the speedy deletion criteria. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh has been tagged for deletion, and may have been deleted by the time you see this message. For text material, please consider rewriting the content and citing the source, provided that it is credible.

If you believe that the article or image is not a copyright violation, or if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) then you should do one of the following:

 * If you have permission from the author leave a message explaining the details at Talk:Asiatic Society of Bangladesh and send an email with the message to "permissions-en (at) wikimedia (dot) org". See Requesting copyright permission for instructions.
 * If a note on the original website states that re-use is permitted under the GFDL or released into the public domain leave a note at Talk:Asiatic Society of Bangladesh with a link to where we can find that note.
 * If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation permitting re-use under the GFDL, and note that you have done so on Talk:Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.

However, for text content, you may want to consider rewriting the content in your own words. Thank you, and please feel free to continue contributing to Wikipedia. ScottW 00:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Banglapedia
Thank you for adding links to Banglapedia: they seem to be well matched to the articles. One minor point though: the source URL for Banglapedia is banglapedia.org whereas you have been using the URL banglapedia.search.com.bd which is a mirror site carrying advertisements. It would be better if you could link to the source site please: WP:EL always chooses the site without adverts and closer to source. Please could you also confirm than you have no link to Banglapedia or the mirror site to which you have been linking. Thanks --BozMo talk 13:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your message. The link you sent me did not seem to show that .search.com.bd is the oldest? Banglapedia.net has a first entry of 22 Jan 2002 versus April 6 2004 for banglapedia.net, or am I misunderstanding something?
 * Ok. I accept your point about banglapedia.search.com.bd and will not redirect any more links to it. In principle WP would always choose the advert free version but if the two are related and not third party mirrors I am relaxed about it. I think though you should not put up more links to Banglapedia because of WP:COI. Please instead mention them on talk pages and leave others to do this. --BozMo talk 10:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Zbd


text: Talk:Irish art

title: Talk:Irish art