Are you betting on the wrong thing?
August 18, 1913. Casino de Monte Carlo. A crowd gathers around a roulette table, buzzing with disbelief. The ball keeps landing on black — ten times, fifteen, twenty. With each spin, gamblers pile their chips on red, convinced it has to come next. It's only fair, right?
It landed on black 26 times in a row. On the 27th spin, red finally appeared — but by then, the gamblers had lost millions chasing a pattern that never existed.
This is the Monte Carlo fallacy, also known as the gambler's fallacy: the belief that random events somehow "owe" us a different result. We assume the universe is self-correcting, that after enough bad luck, good luck must be due. But a roulette wheel has no memory. Each spin is completely independent of the last.
We do this in our own lives more than we realize. After three bad relationships, we assume the next will be different — without changing anything about how we choose. We send out dozens of job applications, thinking, "The next one has to work." We over-extend on our credit cards and tell ourselves a breakthrough is just around the corner. We keep betting on red, not because anything has changed, but because we feel owed.
This is what it looks like to stay stuck. Same choices, same results — just a different day.
Decision Worth Making
Breaking the cycle starts with awareness.
Notice where you expect change without doing anything differently.
Once you identify it, you can replace it with something that actually serves you and take a new action to support it.
Only you can even the score.
Good Luck,
Termeil Hall