If we toss a
cent and heads appear twelve times, that does not have the
slightest effect on the thirteenth toss--there is still an even
chance that it, too, will be heads. So if '17' had come up five
times to-night, it would be just as likely to come the sixth as
if the previous five had not occurred, and that despite the fact
that before it has appeared at all odds against a run of the same
number six times in succession are about two billion, four
hundred and ninety-six million, and some thousands. Most systems
are based on the old persistent belief that occurrences of chance
are affected in some way by occurrences immediately preceding,
but disconnected physically. If we've had a run of black for
twenty times, system says play the red for the twenty-first. But
black is just as likely to turn up the twenty-first as if it were
the first play of all. The confusion arises because a run of
twenty on the black should happen once in one million,
forty-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy-six coups. It
would take ten years to make that many coups, and the run of
twenty might occur once or any number of times in it. It is only
when one deals with infinitely large numbers of coups that one
can count on infinitely small variations in the mathematical
results. This game does not go on for infinity--therefore
anything, everything, may happen.
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