What motivates someone to frantically throw money into a slot machine, to bet the same number over and over again in roulette? When we play at the casino, cognitive biases alter our ability to think rationally.

A cognitive bias is a form of thinking that affects our ability to reason logically or rationally. Each of us is exposed to such prejudice every day, often unconsciously. In a state of stress or anxiety, we tend to use automatic, lower-level thought processes that cause us to act irrationally. This may seem obvious, but it's important to understand that even when we're doing something we enjoy, like playing casino games or playing the lottery, this cognitive bias is there. If you add to the concept of excitement the concept of stress during a poker tournament or when you are close to the jackpot in a slot machine, this cognitive bias becomes even more intense. This is why you should always play it safe and not get too excited. And why online casinos are useful for the Danish economy, you will find the answer in this source.

Player error

This cognitive bias, also called the bet fallacy, is the belief that a previous event can affect the next. If a spinner lands on red five times in a row, we tend to think that they are more likely to land on black the next time. In fact, since the draws are independent, the probability is always the same: one chance out of two. Similarly, a losing streak at a slot machine leads us to believe that the machine will eventually "return" the money, prompting us to procrastinate.

The law of large numbers

Most people tend to think that large samples are more representative for calculating probabilities. When you are dealt a deck of 100 cards with 15 trump cards, the probability of drawing a trump card is 15% (15 divided by 100). Another 10-card game with two trumps gives a 20% chance of winning (2 divided by 10), which is higher than the previous game. However, we tend to believe that we have a better chance of winning with 15 cards.

Excessive self-confidence

Excessive self-confidence is a tendency to overestimate one's abilities. This bias has been highlighted in various fields: more than half of people believe that they have above average intelligence. Overconfidence mostly applies to strategy games, where we tend to think we are more skilled than other players, which makes us take more risks. This belief is often combined with an outcome bias: if I won, it wasn't by chance, but because I was the best.

Availability bias

When we think of gambling or online casino gambling, we immediately think of coins dripping from a slot machine or a lottery winner screaming for joy when they discover their winning grid. Overhyped and promoted by the casinos themselves, these examples aim to make these memories accessible to our brains. Thus, when we play, we remember those scenes that seem close to us, although the probability of winning is very small. This is mainly what attracts online casino players, this idea of easily winning the jackpot in online casino games, but how to win in online casino games requires patience, practice and a certain amount of money invested.

The illusion of control

The illusion of control is the tendency to believe that we have the power to control events that are beyond our control. Psychological studies, for example, have shown that gamblers roll the dice gently when hoping to get low numbers, and harder when they want to get high numbers. This illusion of control can be active, as in this example or wearing a lucky item, or passive ("because I'm lucky today, I should bet more").
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