Roulette, a Paradox in probability theory?!!

September 14, 2006

roulette.jpgWhen playing Roulette there seems to be two competing, contradictory notions at work the same time. One says: The wheel does not have a memory so it does not keep track of the previous numbers and probability of each number coming is the same as any other regardless if it came previous round or how many times in past 20 rounds. On the other hand we know that there is a law in probability, called law of large numbers that miantains that the average value of many trials/outcomes has to approach the expected value of the distribution. In case of roullete the expected value is something around 18. So basically it says you can not have high numbers forever. In other words if you have had lets say 12 high numbers it’s inevitable that smaller numbers start to come. So can be said about red and black outcomes. So which one is it? No memory or memory.I have seen answers to this all over but I am not convienced yet!!

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