Forget psychology and you forget that irrationality is what we do best.
*Less cryptically, if you disregard the psychological challenge succinctly described by the OP then you're looking past the problem here, not solving it. The non-rational part of the brain tends to come first!
Gambler's Fallacy again, looking for a succinct explanation of a variant of Martingale
- ShaunWhite
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jamesedwards wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2026 2:40 pm
Shaun White (c.1972–TBC): Correctly identifies Martingale as a pile of crap.
It's 1964 - TBC unfortunately.
In UK horse racing, significant losing streaks for favourites are common, with data suggesting losing runs for clear favourites reaching up to 33, or up to 41 when including joint and co-favourites, particularly in National Hunt racing.
To win £1
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silentdiver
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jamesedwards wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2026 2:40 pmShaun White (c.1972–TBC): Correctly identifies Martingale as a pile of crap.
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silentdiver
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That's such a great list, thank you !ShaunWhite wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2026 2:36 pmList of notable people who have studied gambling probability and discounted the concept of a Martingale...
I think I'll make a component in the web app to display it verbatim; and when a strategy is set up that is verging too much on the martingale, it can pop the display up at the bottom.
The system I'm building has a very flexible open-ended / programmable-ish set of functions, which can be combined to make all sorts of things happen, including martingale-ish behaviour. There are already a few 'Hmm, that might go horribly wrong'-type nudge messages that appear along those lines, so the above will be a great addition.
May I ask, is that LLM output or from your own knowledge/research ? - no disrespect to you intended at all, but if it's the former I ought to check it didn't just make the lot up !
Yes, but I suppose Martingale is much easier to explore past page 1 when the bankroll belongs to the investor.Acheron wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2026 3:08 pmForget psychology and you forget that irrationality is what we do best.
*Less cryptically, if you disregard the psychological challenge succinctly described by the OP then you're looking past the problem here, not solving it. The non-rational part of the brain tends to come first!
Reminds me of the old bit "that's a risk I'm willing to take".
- ShaunWhite
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I can't remember what I did yesterday let alone a list like that.silentdiver wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2026 3:26 am
May I ask, is that LLM output or from your own knowledge/research ? - no disrespect to you intended at all, but if it's the former I ought to check it didn't just make the lot up !
I just used Google... something like "give me a list of all the notable people who have studied the use of Martingales in betting and probability. "
There's no need to reinvent the wheel. There's no shortage of people throughout history who've looked for risk free, work free money.
