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Are you telling me my gambling addiction will finally pay off??!
Most gamblers quit right before they become rich
The Quitter's Fallacy.
I'm not sure why that's germane, but I'm happy it's here.
Not unless you do it outside a golden palace that abstracts your money into vouchers and chips.
But generally wealthy people make more gambles in business, partnership, accountability, other people's lives and social welfare, and the general stability of the world.
Like say becoming an arms dealer then paying the cost of a F-150 economy package to a couple senators and having them spend their endless war chests with no audits or oversight on some missiles to kill some goat farmers or something.
Or creating a pesticide with the upside of remaining active in soil for 4 or 5 centuries (and recycling in the human liver for up to a year after exposure) and having it produced in an impoverished southern town and then exported to French Polynesia so they can continue to grow cloned banana trees.
Or like taking doctors on nice yacht lunches and golf trips and telling them yes you really have developed a non addictive opioid.
Are you gambling with your money or other people's?
Was any of your ancestors a particularly successful mass murderer in the middle ages?
I mean, depending on your definition of mass murderer, you can safely say yes.
The serious answer is that you need to play positive sum games.
I disagree. The serious answer is you have to be the one person that gets lucky.
Take 1024 people each with $1000. They all play roulette and go all in every round, half on black half on red. After 10 rounds, 1023 people have lost all their money, and one has won a million dollars.
The person who "made it" didn't do anything different, or play a +EV game. He just got lucky.
Roulette is not a positive sum game, though. If you keep playing, eventually you will lose everything to the house.
A positive sum game is where repeated plays will average out to a net gain. The secret is having enough initial capital to keep you alive if your initial gambles don't pan out. People living paycheck to paycheck don't have that
You're correct, but you're also being a bit pedantic and ignoring the point OP is trying to make. It still illustrates the point just fine at 47.4% instead of 50%. Odds of winning 10 in a row go from 1:1,024 to 1:1,746.