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Would you play the coin flip game?

Would you play the coin flip game?

During Christmas holidays, you visit a casino with some of your friends. At one table, you come across a coin flip game. The rules are very simple for this game unlike Blackjack game.
Flip a coin, heads you win $100, tails you lose $50.
You don't like to gamble and you had also declared this before entering the casino.
What is your plan to play now?
Photo Adaptation /Flickr/59937401@N07
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Twinkar
Twinkar
I would play forever as probability dictates that each coin toss is independently, equally likely to be heads or tails As I tend to a larger number of tries Roughly half the number of times I will win $100 and remaining half, I will lose $50 So for example 1000 tries 500 times heads 500.100=50000 gained 500 times tails 500.50=25000 lost Net 50000-25000 25000 gained 1000000 tries 500000 times heads 500000.100=50000000 gained 500 times tails 500000.50=25000000 lost Net 50000000-25000000 250

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The mistakes we make in our everyday life

• We are hardwired to make these mistakes • Few biases are simply evolutionary • These errors affect all of us including the bright ones • Experience is just not enough to overcome • but expertise is required to recognize and overcome

Few of biases as below · Anchoring - When an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information during decision making · Fixed pie - When we assume that our interests conflict with the other party's interests and we play adversarial · Framing - When we decide on our options differently when the options are presented with positive or negative connotations · Vividness – When we pay attention to strong features at the expense of less, that could be more impactful · Over confidence – When our subjective confidence is greater than the objective accuracy · Escalation – When initial decision is followed up with an irrational decision to justify the initial decision

Few ways to mitigate these biases are · Learn to recognize the bias · Use slow, effortful and logical thinking (System 2) · Avoid fast, automatic and effortless thinking (System 1) · Avoid negotiations which are thrust upon when not ready · Learn through use of stories, examples, exercises · Bring an outsider perspective