Editing Gambler's fallacy (section)

== Users ==

=== Types of users ===
Within a real-world setting, numerous studies have uncovered that for various decision makers placed in high stakes scenarios, it is likely they will reflect some degree of strong negative autocorrelation in their judgement.

==== Asylum judges ====
In a study aimed at discovering if the negative autocorrelation that exists with the gambler's fallacy existed in the decision made by U.S. asylum judges, results showed that after two successive asylum grants, a judge would be 5.5% less likely to approve a third grant.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Chen|first1=Daniel|last2=Moskowitz|first2=Tobias J.|last3=Shue|first3=Kelly|date=2016-03-24|title=Decision-Making Under the Gambler's Fallacy: Evidence from Asylum Judges, Loan Officers, and Baseball Umpires*|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|language=en|volume=131|issue=3|pages=1181–1242|doi=10.1093/qje/qjw017|issn=0033-5533|doi-access=free}}</ref>

==== Baseball umpires ====
In the game of [[baseball]], decisions are made every minute. One particular decision made by [[Umpire (baseball)|umpires]] which is often subject to scrutiny is the 'strike zone' decision. Whenever a batter does not swing, the umpire must decide if the ball was within a fair region for the batter, known as the [[strike zone]]. If outside of this zone, the ball does not count towards outing the batter. In a study of over 12,000 games, results showed that umpires are 1.3% less likely to call a strike if the previous two balls were also strikes.<ref name=":0" />

==== Loan officers ====
In the decision making of [[Loan officer|loan officers]], it can be argued that monetary incentives are a key factor in biased decision making, rendering it harder to examine the gambler's fallacy effect. However, research shows that loan officers who are not incentivised by monetary gain are 8% less likely to approve a loan if they approved one for the previous client.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Cole|first1=Shawn|last2=Kanz|first2=Martin|last3=Kapper|first3=Leora|year=2015|title=Incentivizing Calculated Risk-Taking: Evidence from an Experiment with Commercial Bank Loan Officers|journal=Journal of Finance|volume=70|issue=2|pages=537–575|doi=10.1111/jofi.12233|url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:9369407|hdl=10986/12002|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

==== Lottery players ====
[[File:Gamblers Fallacy Effect on Lottery.jpg|thumb|The effect of gambler's fallacy on lottery selections, based on studies by Dek Terrell. After winning numbers are drawn, lottery players respond by reducing the number of times they select those numbers in following draws. This effect slowly corrects over time, as players become less affected by the fallacy.<ref name=":2" />]]Lottery play and jackpots entice gamblers around the globe, with the biggest decision for hopeful winners being what numbers to pick. While most people will have their own strategy, evidence shows that after a number is selected as a winner in the current draw, the same number will experience a significant drop in selections in the following lottery. A popular study by [[Charles T. Clotfelter|Charles Clotfelter]] and [[Philip J. Cook|Philip Cook]] investigated this effect in 1991, where they concluded bettors would cease to select numbers immediately after they were selected, ultimately recovering selection popularity within three months.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last1=Clotfelter|first1=Charles|last2=Cook|first2=Philip|year=1991|title=The "Gambler's Fallacy" in lottery play|journal=National Bureau of Economic Research|pages=1–15}}</ref> Soon after, a 1994 study was constructed by Dek Terrell to test the findings of Clotfelter and Cook. The key change in Terrell's study was the examination of a [[Parimutuel betting|pari-mutuel]] lottery in which, a number selected with lower total wagers placed on it will result in a higher pay-out. While this examination did conclude that players in both types of lotteries exhibited behaviour in-line with the gambler's fallacy theory, those who took part in pari-mutuel betting seemed to be less influenced.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Terrell|first=Dek|date=October 1994|title=A test of the gambler's fallacy: evidence from pari-mutuel games.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0167-6687(94)90729-3|journal=Insurance: Mathematics and Economics|volume=15|issue=1|pages=83–84|doi=10.1016/0167-6687(94)90729-3|issn=0167-6687}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right;"
|+ Table 1. Percentage change in numbers selected by lottery players based on Clotfelter, Cook (1991)<ref name=":1" />
| colspan="2" |
! colspan="5" |Amount  bet by lottery players
|-
! colspan="2" |Numbers drawn 14 April 1988
!Draw day
! colspan="4" |Days after draw
|-
!April
!Winner Numbers
|0
|1
|3
|7
|56
|-
|11
|244
|41
|34
|24
|27
|30
|-
|12
|504
|29
|20
|12
|18
|15
|-
|13
|718
|28
|20
|17
|19
|25
|-
|14
|323
|134
|95
|79
|81
|76
|-
|15
|640
|10
|20
|18
|16
|20
|-
|16
|957
|30
|22
|20
|24
|32
|-
! colspan="3" |Average percentage of players selecting previously winning numbers compared to day of draw
|78%
|63%
|68%
|73%
|}

The effect the of gambler's fallacy can be observed as numbers are chosen far less frequently soon after they are selected as winners, recovering slowly over a two-month period. For example, on the 11th of April 1988, 41 players selected 244 as the winning combination. Three days later only 24 individuals selected 244, a 41.5% decrease. This is the gambler's fallacy in motion, as lottery players believe that the occurrence of a winning combination in previous days will decrease its likelihood of occurring today.

====Video game players====
Several [[video game]]s feature the use of [[loot box]]es, a collection of in-game items awarded on opening with random contents set by rarity metrics, as a [[video game monetization|monetization]] scheme. Since around 2018, loot boxes have come under scrutiny from governments and advocates on the basis they are akin to gambling, particularly for games aimed at youth. Some games use a special "pity-timer" mechanism, that if the player has opened several loot boxes in a row without obtaining a high-rarity item, subsequent loot boxes will improve the odds of a higher-rate item drop. This is considered to feed into the gambler's fallacy since it reinforces the idea that a player will eventually obtain a high-rarity item (a win) after only receiving common items from a string of previous loot boxes.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Xiao | first1 = Leon Y. | first2 = Laura L. | last2 = Henderson | first3 = Yuhan | last3= Yang | first4= Philip W. S. | last4= Newall | title = Gaming the System: Suboptimal Compliance with Loot Box Probability Disclosure Regulations in China. | journal = [[Behavioural Public Policy]] | date = 2021 | volume = 8 | issue = 3 | pages = 590–616 | doi = 10.1017/bpp.2021.23 | s2cid = 237672988 | doi-access = free }}</ref>