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Inverse Gambler's Fallacy

The fallacy of concluding, on the basis of an unlikely outcome of a random process, that the process is likely to have occurred many times before.

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Origin

Philosopher Ian Hacking coined the term "inverse gambler's fallacy" in his 1987 paper "The Inverse Gambler's Fallacy: The Argument from Design. The Anthropic Principle Applied to Wheeler Universes," published in Mind (vol. 96, no. 383). For example, observing double sixes on fair dice doesn't support the hypothesis that the dice have been rolled many times before. From the Bayesian update rule: since P(U|M) = P(U) (the outcome is unaffected by previous occurrences), it follows that P(M|U) = P(M)—our confidence in M should be unchanged. The concept evolved through philosophical responses as a critique of probabilistic inferences in cosmology and design arguments.

Updated February 22, 2026