Topic: Are Nassim Taleb's ideas useful in gambling? (Read 361 times)

This is true, and it can be helpful if someone understands that in gambling, there is randomness and no pattern because if there were patterns, the world would find them out and then everyone could win their bets based on the patterns they have learned.

We often see people being delusional when playing a certain gambling game. They think that they have found some pattern that can make them win, this is specifically for games such as roulette, high-lo games where cards are involved, and some others. They look at past results and think they can guess the next outcome, and if they lucky guess a few right, they start thinking they have found the pattern that they can use to win now. However, they lose everything eventually because their pattern doesn't work.

I think this particular one can be applied to gambling, many a times when someone tries something, and it works, he or she wins possibly out of randomness or luck as we often refer to it as, if that winning for instance continues in that same process, there is a stage it will get to, gamblers will mistake the randomness there for a pattern, most especially when that idea or strategy is no longer bringing in the wins, some assume they missed the partten and start trying to find and get back to it.

This also I believe can be applied to gambling, we can simply assume this to mean that we should invest 90 percent of our money in low risks assets, and only invest 10 percent in high risk stuffs like gambling and sports betting.
I personally will consider this to be one of the best ways or idea to become very conservative as a gambler, making sure we never arive at a stage where we can say that we lost everything.

He's not a philosopher; he is a mathematical statistician who devoted his work to problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty, and if I'm honest, I hadn't heard of him before I read this thread. His views regarding probabilities are extremely intriguing, and I'd be interested in reading some of his publications, especially The Black Swan, which, according to his book, "focuses on the extreme impact of rare and unpredictable outlier events—and the human tendency to find simplistic explanations for these events.".

Personally, I could only relate to the "fooled by randomness" theory, which is something we've all experienced in one way or another, and it's often a topic of discussion about how we're being "cheated" when we wager larger amounts and lose. 

This is largely true. Indeed, many rich people have either been lucky or lucky, and luck has contributed significantly to their wealth. But without luck, many would not exist at all. Yes, we say that the best are lucky, but you still have to be able to take advantage of the chance. I remember one Indian millionaire who simply copied Warren Buffett's portfolio and became rich from it. This is not copy trading, but a kind of copy investing. But this may well be applicable in sports betting. Copy bets are also possible there.

Of course you can apply his ideas to gambling because he talks a lot about order and disorder, about randomness that's one of the main factors in gambling. He also talks a lot about human psychology, our place in today's world, morals and many other.

I can give you an example:
"It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one." - make up your own mind, don't follow others blindly, don't bet on a sports match because a lot of people are doing it, follow your heart and try to do some research.

He claims that you don't simply become a good investor by following others and by being smart. Most of those successful ones are lucky, which is a good way of comparing investing and gambling. A successful investor will not tell you he got lucky but will rather talk about analysis and guidance, pretty much like successful gamblers who often brag about being good at something. How can you be good at slots or dice? You cannot!

The Black Swan is a rare event that entails a very serious consequences, and his influence is very insignificant on gambling, at least not in daily terms. And if we talk about the probabilities, or about our perceptions to external factors that could affect our results, then I think that these are just random results, that we try to fit under a certain result. But the human mind is inclined to look for patterns, at least I constantly notice it behind myself, I often try to analyze the result and find an explanation why it happened that way, it does not always concern gambling. And I am almost sure that we are often mistaken when we believe that there are some kind of behavior, that are able to influence our future. I can say the same thing regarding superstitions as a black cat, when people are afraid that he will run through the road, these are all unreasonable mistakes. From your topic, I realized that I'm new to Nassim Taleb books, and I still have to fix it.

This is very useful for those addicted gamblers, that keep on losing. They should learn that RNGesus is RANDOM, they're not being cheated, and their "losing streak" is merely a product of a random sequence of situations like the "winning streak".


A strategy based on a theory that's based on an idea about something absolutely unpredictable? Prepare to lose all your Bitcoins. Hahaha.

Yes, it's a funny story. In general, you raised an interesting question. I think that absolute randomness probably does not exist. We simply consider as an accident what we cannot analyze. And here there is probably the exact opposite thing, which even Taleb did not want to analyze. Let’s call it “Fooled by a Pattern.” Do you know that many patterns look like accidents? For example, some astrological cycles. Or, for example, people do not believe in technical analysis and believe that there is a random walk in prices in the market. To find a pattern in this chaos requires a lot of effort.

In my opinion, there are several concepts/ideas from Nassim Taleb that can be used and may be useful for gamblers.
For example point idea [3].

My rational understanding is that people have various types of managing money and the types of instruments they choose vary in the level of minimizing the risks that occur, This type of person, of course 90% of their funds tend to choose to save or invest their money at a low risk or low profit level, basically they still think their money is safe or not at risk in a fluctuating manner.

Another 10% of funds can certainly be used in gambling, as you mentioned high risk, generally we often encounter this type of person in gambling, of course this can be adjusted, if they are not heavily addicted to gambling.

The third point can be used for gambling players.

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The next points that can be used in the gambling industry are: [4]

Instruments like 'Skin in the game' from Nassim Taleb's idea are certainly the right thing to use in the gambling industry, this type of person is very strong in referring to gambling business people, Of course this is done for those who have large capital, because skin in the game is often equated with executives, for example: casino owners or investors in the gambling industry.

Of course, this fourth idea is significantly feasible and suitable for use in managing or financing an online casino to become successful and in general gain a share in online casinos.

This point is not for players, this idea applies to developers, owners or investors in online casinos.

I can say gambling is not that my passion or maybe I should use the world 'hobby' because I still like to gamble at times especially during the weekends when I have nothing to do and also when I am around my friends we can talk about gambling and gamble on a gambling site. I read about 1% to be used for gambling on a football prediction site but it has been long and I do not remember the prediction site that I read it from as I have many prediction sites in the past that I check for prediction before betting.

Great to hear that. I think that only means that gambling is not your passion. The one that you read about gambling fund is found in the forum? Because I also read one here before and yes, it exactly says 1%. For the people who says gambling is life, they can't find value in their game if they also use a low amount of money.

No matter if it's small or big, a loss is still a loss. You can only say that you didn't lose anything if you didn't risk even a single penny. And is there such thing as money that we hate earning? I think that's a disrespect to the money itself. It only means that we don't value it. Anyways, I believe that all people are very eager to earn but it's just that our bad habits can make us to spend more money on them.

That's not what it reffers to. It reffers to people creating pattern in their own head from the randomness that is happening. you can see this from some people who have posted here in the forum in the past claiming that they are being cheated because everytime they bet high they lose. Of course there are other example of it but this is the first thing came to my mind.

I think the best book from him is the first one "Fooled by Randomness" as I am one of those crazy persons who still believe in a pattern in a game that is full of random outcomes like a slot machine.I have many years in gambling and still the slots providers manage to deceive me with their reels making me thinking that maybe I found a pattern.Not longer than sometime ago I was playing every day the Rabbit Garden slot from Pragmatic Play and I noticed that when only buying the bonus game,if you were never able to get past the first level in three consecutive buy bonus then most likely the fourth game was a guaranteed win in the sense to be more than x100 which was the cost of buy bonus,I happen to hit it several times and it looks like this is a pattern,I know though that when I will try again it won't work,I was fooled by randomness,a victim of the first book  .

Yes, perhaps some of the ideas of philosopher and writer Nassim Taleb can be applied to gambling. 
For example, one of Taleb’s most famous concepts is the “Black Swan” concept.  A black swan is an unexpected event that leads to great consequences in people's lives.  As a result of cognitive distortions, people consider the occurrence of such an event to be less likely than it actually is. 
A gambler can take advantage of these cognitive distortions (which cause people to misjudge the probabilities of events), for example, in sports betting. 
Searching for “Black Swans” is generally an exciting and very profitable activity!

I have long wanted to read a book of Taleb but I eventually was discouraged after he became a strong Bitcoin critic. I initially believed Nassim has some brilliant ideas but then I ended up thinking he was strongly biased in his opinions. I could be very wrong, of course.

Anyway, with the gist of his books presented here, I think there are certain points that are highly applicable in gambling. The idea itself that there is a pattern is often prevalent among gamblers but this is something that's just in the minds of the gamblers. In reality, every outcome is random and is completely independent from the results of every other game.

A black swan event is something that can't be anticipated. And since it is something that happens rarely, I don't think a gambling strategy in anticipation of it is a wise strategy.

I don't know how the ideas of Antifragile apply in gambling but as far as Skin in the Game is concerned both gamblers and gambling companies have of course a skin in the game.

I don't know any about the book but I guess I will use what I can understand.
This probably is the best way to define Keno. I do this and I think I am foolish to believe that it can work.
Here is what I do. If I hit a 7 of 9 number in a medium-risk Keno game, I will check that ticket and see what numbers did not hit so I can change them. Sadly, it does not work, and the sadder part is I still kept on doing it. Well, that one part of Keno where I enjoyed it so I guess it's alright.

Unexpected with consequences. I think this happens a lot.
I just checked the plot of the book through Google and I think this talks not just about gambling but also about risk-management. A lot of times we will be affected by stress and that clouds our minds and our decision-making goes south. But I do think it can be used in gambling, actually, I might read this and who knows if it might help me how to be stronger mentally.

Both have risks and we must be prepared mentally. We cannot just decide and think carefully about what is happening. It does happen a lot in gambling. Recently, I had a bad amount of loss and my mind was stuck with the idea of an RTP but it didn't happen. And I don't want to happen to me again. We can be weak when we are stressed, controlling that emotion is a must.

This can confuse people. Some people will think that the high risk assets can be gambling assets. Out of my money, I can not leave more than 5% in gambling. Most of the time I leave lower than 5%. I have read about gambling funds before and it is advised that it should not even be more than 1% of your income. Using the low amount of money can give joy and happiness as they are nothing for you and it would be like you did not lose anything. But it should be about 1 to 5% of the money you hate earning and not your total assets.

I have heard about it, and especially in case 1:


This is something I keep repeating. Patterns are human constructs that we plot to understand random series of events, and they are patterns that get shattered as we get more data from the series.


In order for this not to happen to you, apart from understanding about patterns you should understand about mathematical expectation. If there is any “pattern” there it is that you were having too much luck, to put it in colloquial terms, not that you were on a streak that could continue.

I kind of know this relates a lot with what's happening in gambling as it's a normal thing to kind of look at patterns that have played out in the past and use it as a guide that kind of help us decide how we play out bets and sometimes it end up working out for us and we tend to feel a sense of assurance that we now have a pattern we can work with forgetting that it's gambling and there is little of pattern but more of randomness in making our stakes.

You find it alot in sports betting while doing analysis before staking a match and you will normally see analyst make statement like, the last time this particular team won against this team is ten years ago and haven't lost till date and it might affect a gamblers decision to favour a particular team as it's likely assumed that the pattern will repeat itself. Team like Bayern Leverkusen that have been on a not loosing stride after almost 46 matches have made it look like a pattern at the moment and such kind of thing can affect a gamblers perception to believing that it's now a pattern and so yeah, randomness can Sometimes be mistaken as pattern. However, some games, like poker, involve skill and strategy alongside randomness, so players can use patterns and information to make decisions. Overall, understanding the balance between randomness and patterns can help players make informed choices in gambling.

You'd be surprised with how many people that aren't thinking that and are thinking otherwise, I guess some people just really want to do something about how they gamble that they find it hard to believe that they can't control the outcome so they lie to themselves so they have the ability to ease their worries about this kind of things. It's really difficult to lessen the losses though, it comes with the game after all, the losses and the only way that I can think of that is if you play less or you do it the hard way and gamble and hope that you can win more but that's close to impossible.

Completely agree with 1, randomness can produce a pattern but that doesn't mean it follows that pattern. The fact that it can produce a pattern and yet also go completely sideways after that pretty much reveals that it is indeed random, instead of a predestined pattern.

As for 2, I'd say it's pretty similar to the bias (if it means what I think it means) I've said in my past comments, survivorship bias to be exact. People often only consider things that have happened when explaining, often forgetting about prior instances that ran contrary to what they've experienced at that moment. The view they see things get pretty narrow, not that I blame them, gambling can be pretty emotional at times.

As for 3, idk, I just spend everything I have in my bankroll. If we were talking about the entirety of our funds, where 10% here can be said to be the gambling asset part, then yea I guess it works as well.

I think the idea and philosophy that is useful in gambling is the Fooled by Randomness. It emphasizes how humans tend to perceive patterns where there are none, often attributing success to skill rather than luck. This concept is highly relevant in gambling, where outcomes are largely influenced by chance. Recognizing the role of randomness can help gamblers avoid overconfidence in their abilities and make more rational decisions, avoid chasing losses based on illusions of control. This understanding can help gamblers avoid the gambler’s fallacy, where one might believe that past outcomes influence future ones in games of pure chance.

I was not aware of Taleb until you posted all his books which to me is a must-read considering that one of his books Fooled by Randomness was picked by Fortune as one of the 75 Smartest Books Of All Time

one of the ideas discussed in this book is this
This one applies to gambling, we look, celebrate, and boast about our winnings forgetting our huge losses, when in fact if you calculate the winning is not even a fraction of the losses.
Gamblers emphasize winnings and easily forget their losses.

I never had read this far to know about these theories thus I can actually relate with the one bold above, #3. When as a gambler or trader, the 90 percent of our total income or assets should be safe and secure than using that amount we can't be bear the lost to invest or gamble. That is to say of every total income that is coming maybe it may not be all but at least should be able to spare out 10 percent for gambling than put 90 percent into trading, gambling or online investment it could be more safer with bank than any other platform I think.
Any other person can correct me if I am wrong.

I can apply this one to gambling. I see it as gamblers should know that winning is random in gambling and not a pattern. Some gamblers may think they can use a strategy or some strategies to win the casino or the bookie but at the end they will be the one that is losing. We should not consider something random can be won with some kind of strategies. We should gamble responsibly and with the amount of money that we can afford to lose.

The way I understand the barbell concept from the book antifragile is that the 10% high-risk assets is money that one can afford to lose and therefore after they have safely kept 90% of their other income in the bank or in any other investment, the rest is for allocated to their gambling. I think that the 10% is too high though. It should be within 5 - 8% of one's income. And the gambler should take care not to exceed this percentage allocation.

I know some of his words, but number 1 certainly resonates with me on a personal level.

I often get fooled by certain events that happened in succession with the same outcome thinking that all of it was forming a pattern of some sort. This is what I thought of in dice games but little did I know that these are nothing but random events forming similar outcomes. I thought for a second that I could make some money off it, and when it happened for 3 times, I was certain that the next roll would be in my favor (high). I went all in and bam, I just lost all my bankroll because it rolled low.

I'm pretty sure most of us here were deceived by randomness thinking it was a pattern forming before our eyes. Until now, I'm still making those assumptions, though I am very careful in my next steps because it could be something that I might regret again just like the last time I bet on it thinking it would be in my favor.

There's no way a gambler will have full control of the gambling outcome. However there are strategies which could at least increase your chances of winning; card counting and card predictjon on card games and making your own analysis with a fighter or sports team. These things won't make winning certain but at least you'd have a better result. The discussion questions whether Nasim's idea is useful in gambling. With that, then I'd say yes. Most of his contents are about risk management which is in the first place beneficial to a gambler especially ones who eaily gets frustrated and greedy. One way to come up with profit is to lessen your loss. Maybe it just depends on how a gambler would handle things on his own. Aiming to win is a normal thing but having that needed discipline is on another level in this industry.

We can apply such ideas in gambling, there is nothing bad in doing that, we should only be focused on knowing the rightful application of these to which kind or category of bets we are playing that may be found suitable for the use of this same philosophy in gambling, it may work for us and may not as well, but at least everything begins with a test in other for us to see how effective it could, just as many of us do make us of different gambling strategies in playing our bets.

This can be used to in gambling. Let me explain.

In a hypothetical situation where I am experiencing 3 winning streaks in the game of slot, instead of me to think about it as just a random occurrence, I may then make the mistake of seeing a pattern that I took that made me win. I may attribute it to the time of the day I played the slot and experienced a winnings in a role, I may attribute to the posture I took while playing the game or some other assumptions that I managed to conjure up in my head. While in reality, there is no pattern. My winning streaks were all just random. And in gambling, if I do not quickly correct my assumptions, what happens next is to chase the loss if I experience it on fourth game in after the winning streaks because I believe that I broke the pattern and have to get it back. Mistaking randomness for a pattern leads to making poor decisions and eventually loss.

Of course, there is no book that will tell you any gamble strategy on making profit, because it is not possible to make profit in gamble, but only luck can give your profit. This is why you can only be taught on how to limit your losses, which I think is the best when gambling. This was why Nassim in "fooled by randomness" talks more about risk management in gambling. Whoever cannot control and limit his losses will continue chasing his loss, and losing more.

Here is an additional information about the guy

https://thedecisionlab.com/thinkers/philosophy/nassim-taleb

he has his website for you to get to know about his works and philosophy
https://nassimtaleb.org/

For a serious gambler, these ideas are worth exploring, but the majority of gamblers learn from their experience and we base our knowledge on what comes to and what the gambling community discusses but never have I imagined applying ideas coming from philosophers, although its worth a try, I don't know if there is a discussion that explores gambling using ideas and experiment coming from philosophers.

I'm only familiar with "fooled by randomness," which refers to gamblers who often chase their losses, which only increase their losses in the end because they think they can recover what
they lost in gambling. This is my only understanding of this book.

And it's also focused most of the time on a gambler losing, and besides that, it's not focused on how a gambler can win but rather more on risk management, as I understand it.
In short, it doesn't give strategy or a trick of winning in gambling to the gamblers most often. 

Skin in the game I think should apply to all industries not just in gambling. If he meant casino owners stand their ground and take responsibility I think we all get reliability and fairness. If the skin in the game means not just gamblers have to submit KYC but casino owners also have to publish their names, I guess it's fair.
I do not know Nassim but the idea has been around for a long time. It's been discussed many times in classrooms. Where the industry provider has to be responsible for they are risking reputation.

As for randomness, gamblers are already aware they could lose in playing casino games.

@OP, maybe add the background of the subject involved since not everyone knew his credentials. Just a simple google search, I found that he is mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist whose work concerns problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty as per the wikipedia details to this person.

I think with this rich background makes his words very credible especially his opinion about randomness. Many people always find a pattern on a pure random games which is an insane thing to do. This is a very topic OP all his words make sense when it comes to application in gambling.

I will try to scan the books that you mention. Sounds cool tho.

I have long wanted to discuss the following topic with users and participants in gambling discussions. Do you think Nassim Teleb's philosophy can be of any use in gambling? His various ideas and theories? Let me just list some of his ideas and you can comment on how, if any, benefits can be gained from this:
1. Ideas from the book “Fooled by Randomness.” There are many ideas that boil down to the fact that we often mistake randomness for a pattern.
2. Ideas from the book “Black Swan”. Strategies based on anticipation of the Black Swan.
3. Ideas from the book “Antifragile.” By the way, the concept of “barbell” is also from this book. Keep 90% of the bank in conservative assets and 10% in high-risk assets.
4. Ideas from the book “Skin in the Game”.
If you think any of these ideas can be applied to gambling, explain why you think so and how specifically it can be applied. If you believe that Nassim Taleb's ideas only apply to options trading and not to gambling, tell us more about your position.