Question

After ten bad hands of poker, the poker player believes that they are due for a good hand. This is an example of what?

a) Risk aversion
b) Regression to the mean
c) The hot-hand fallacy
d) Confirmation bias

Answer 1

The poker player's belief that they are due for a good hand after ten bad hands is an example of the gambler's fallacy, which is the faulty reasoning that future chance events are more likely to occur if they have not happened recently.

Step-by-step explanation:

The poker player's belief that they are due for a good hand after experiencing ten bad hands is an example of the gambler's fallacy. The gambler's fallacy is the faulty reasoning that future chance events are more likely to occur if they have not happened recently. In reality, each hand of poker is statistically independent and the player's previous outcomes do not affect the future outcomes.

For example, flipping a coin multiple times and getting a string of heads does not make it more likely to get tails on the next flip. Each coin flip has an equal chance of turning up heads or tails.

Therefore, the poker player's belief in being due for a good hand is not based on a rational understanding of probability, but rather on a misconception about the nature of chance events.