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Law of Large Numbers/Law of Averages

Author: Katherine Williams
Video Transcript
Terms to Know
Law of Averages/Gambler's Fallacy/Gambler's Ruin

A misapplication of the Law of Large Numbers, where people try to apply long-run probabilities to short-run events. The false "Law of Averages" is not a mathematical phenomenon, but rather a psychological trick people play on themselves to convince themselves that favorable outcomes are about to occur, using past behavior to influence their reasoning. 

Law of Large Numbers

A mathematical rule that states that as the number of trials of a chance experiment increase, the experimental probability of an event becomes closer to the true probability of that event.