Hot Hand Fallacy
- “is the hot hand real”
- “hot hand fallacy debunked”
- “do streaks in sport mean anything”
- “was the hot hand study wrong”
:: COMPARE ::
Hot handvsGambler's fallacy
The short answer
Long taught as twin errors, they have parted company. The gambler's fallacy remains a genuine error because roulette spins are independent by design. A basketball player is not a roulette wheel, shots are not independent draws, and the analysis that declared the belief false has since been shown to be biased. Treating the two as equivalent is now itself the mistake.
Side by side
| Aspect | Hot hand | Gambler's fallacy |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Human performance | Independent events |
| Independence holds | No | Yes |
| Still a fallacy? | Contested | Yes |
| Key year | 2018 | 1913 / 1971 |
Which one you meant
Readers who land here meaning Hot Hand Fallacy rather than Gambler's fallacy are usually searching for phrases like “is the hot hand real”, “hot hand fallacy debunked”, “do streaks in sport mean anything”.
Gambler's Fallacy
- “after nine heads isn't tails due”
- “gamblers fallacy explained”
- “do lottery numbers get due”
- “why streaks feel like they must break”
Which came first
Gambler's fallacy. 1913 — At the Monte Carlo Casino, a roulette ball lands on black 26 spins in a row. Gamblers piled money onto red on the reasoning that the streak had to correct, and lost heavily. The commonly repeated 'millions of francs' figure is journalistic; the 26-spin run is the durable part.
- 1913Gambler's FallacyAt the Monte Carlo Casino, a roulette ball lands on black 26 spins in a row. Gamblers piled money onto red on the reasoning that the streak had to correct, and lost heavily. The commonly repeated 'millions of francs' figure is journalistic; the 26-spin run is the durable part.
- 1985Hot Hand FallacyGilovich, Vallone and Tversky analyse basketball shooting data, find no evidence that made shots raise the chance of the next one, and conclude the widespread belief in the hot hand is 'a powerful and widely shared cognitive illusion'.
Read either one in full