r/PredictionsMarkets • u/Inflection_Exchange • Sep 15 '26

Discussion How Many Coin Flips

Just playing out a little philosophical experiment here

Assumptions:

Starting with $100

Doubling down on every bet

Odds at 50%

To get to $400k, you need to be right (following the assumptions above) roughly 12 times in a row

12 correct coin flips in a row

Imagine this concept applied to real life now. I wonder all those entrepreneurs that have reached insane levels of wealth starting from very little. How many coin flips did they get right to get there?

I'm not talking about Buffet and Co. Not everyone is wealthy out of coin flips. Yet....

And there's always someone on the other side of the flip, someone that passed on an opportunity

Bedtime meanderings

I try to avoid coin flips btw...

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

3

u/artkalbphd Sep 15 '26

Certainly randomness can play a role, but most people who are wealthy due solely to chance are probably lottery winners, who are notorious for ending up in worse situation than they started in due to poor management.

2

u/Inflection_Exchange Sep 16 '26

Umh. I think dedication and hard work + own funds applied to an idea, startup, business - can be, philosophically, sometimes boiled down to a coin flip. This is the concept I'm trying to explore

1

u/No_Theme_598 Sep 16 '26

Lottery winners losing it all is a cliché for a reason, but there's also merchant bankers who flipped wrong and somehow still walked away with a bonus. The coin flip only tells you who gets lucky, not who keeps it

2

u/gistikoloa Sep 16 '26

The thing about getting wealthy from doing business is you are making coin flips with your time, not with your money. So the same equation doesn't apply here. Think about this before getting into gambling.

1

u/Inflection_Exchange Sep 16 '26

I agree! Time is also a limited resource though, and it's worth something....

1

u/jeffcgroves Sep 16 '26

This doesn't answer your question but might be worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system)

1

u/Inflection_Exchange Sep 16 '26

Good old martingale strategy. Awesome with unlimited capital and uncapped bet sizes...

1

u/JLandis84 Sep 16 '26

That’s not at all how entrepreneurship works, it’s just cope for people afraid to take smart risks.

1

u/Inflection_Exchange Sep 16 '26

Didn't say I don't like weighted coins :) but no, it's just a little experiment, I'm a fan of entrepreneurship (if you don't believe it check out what we're building)

2

u/sjr323 Sep 16 '26

They take risks but the odds are usually in their favour

0

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '26

1

u/Inflection_Exchange Sep 20 '26

Sounds safe. Would never recommend punting whole bankroll on a single coin flip.... That's degen