Manuscript received June 23, 2026; accepted July 1, 2026; published July 16, 2026.

Abstract—Probability is taught not only in the classroom, but also in more mundane probability games such as board games, lotteries, and gamified consumer goods. Such contexts can enhance intuition regarding randomness, but they can also increase biases in thinking, like the gambler’s fallacy, and hot-hand belief, as well as near-miss effects. This paper is a synthesis of recent studies involving probability education, game-based learning, and behavioral decision science to answer the question of why the game context can be effective in teaching probability, why intuitive biases can lead to biased judgments in the case of uncertainty, and why probability education, and debiasing strategies can help to minimize the irrationality of decision-making. The paper draws a conclusion that high-quality, game-based probability education that is aided by simulations, the explicit teaching of independence and sample size, reflective prediction problems, and critical media/marketing literacy has the potential to produce lower misconceptions and enhance the quality of decisions in the outside classroom. In the review, it is also noted that prevention-based gambling education works best to address the problem of misunderstanding the concept of randomness and control as opposed to using the fear-based message.
 
Keywords—probability education, game-based learning, Gambler's fallacy, debiasing

Cite: Wenye Hu, "Learning Probability Through Games and Gambling: Cognitive Pitfalls and Educational Remedies," International Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 200-203, 2026.

Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).