The Jackpot Age: Why Most Punters Lose Chasing Big Wins
David Duffield | Jul 23, 2025
Maths and Data
A 20% positive edge on a coin toss sounds like a licence to print money.
But if you take the time to read a recent Twitter article called
The Jackpot Age, you’ll quickly reconsider that idea. In 25,000 simulations of people flipping a coin 1,000 times, almost all of them end up with nothing.
Why? Because chasing jackpots leads most people to zero. And that lesson applies directly to modern betting, with so many punters lured into high-risk, high-reward bets, even when the long-term odds are stacked against them:
- Multis promising massive payouts from small stakes
- Hail Mary longshots bets with slim chances
- Chasing losses with bigger bets
- Social media glorifying “$10 into $10,000” wins
The Illusion of the 20% Edge
You're right to see a 20% expected gain per flip. If you gain 100% on heads and lose 60% on tails, and each happens 50% of the time, the average outcome for a single flip looks positive:
(50% chance of gaining 100%) + (50% chance of losing 60%)
(0.5 * 100%) + (0.5 * -60%) = 50% - 30% = +20%
This "expected value" or "arithmetic mean" tells you the average result if you were to play this game just once, or if you had an endless supply of money and each bet was independent of the last, always starting with the same amount.
The problem is that your capital changes.
The crucial detail is that in this game, you're betting a percentage of your net worth, and your net worth changes with every flip. This is where the "multiplicative property" comes in, and it's why the game is a long-term loser.
Let's imagine you start with $100 and play just two flips:
Scenario 1: Heads then Tails
Start: $100
Flip 1 (Heads, +100%): You now have $100 + $100 = $200
Flip 2 (Tails, -60% of current $200): You lose $120 ($200 * 0.60). You now have $200 - $120 = $80
Scenario 2: Tails then Heads
Start: $100
Flip 1 (Tails, -60% of current $100): You lose $60 ($100 * 0.60). You now have $100 - $60 = $40
Flip 2 (Heads, +100% of current $40): You gain $40 ($40 * 1.00). You now have $40 + $40 = $80
In both scenarios, after one head and one tail, you end up with $80. You've lost $20, or 20% of your original $100, even though the "average" single flip was supposed to be a 20% gain!
Why Large Losses Are Devastating
The reason for this is that losses hit your capital much harder than gains build it up when you're compounding.
When you gain 100%, you multiply your money by 2 (e.g., $100 becomes $200).
When you lose 60%, you multiply your money by 0.4 (e.g., $100 becomes $40).
If you experience both, the overall effect is multiplying by 2 and then by 0.4 (or vice versa), which results in multiplying by 0.8 (2 * 0.4 = 0.8). This means, on average, your money is shrinking by 20% over two flips, or by about 10.6% per flip (since 0.894 * 0.894 is approximately 0.8).
The Arithmetic vs Geometric Trap
Arithmetic Mean = the average of all possible outcomes. Looks great when you only focus on big wins.
Geometric Mean = the most likely outcome over time. And for most punters, it’s an inevitable path to zero.
Even +EV bets can wipe you out if volatility is too high and bankroll management is ignored. This is why so many punters bleed their bankroll while believing they’re just unlucky.
While the arithmetic mean (your 20% edge) tells you the average outcome of a single event, the geometric mean tells you the average growth rate of your wealth over many repeated events where your capital is constantly changing.
For this specific coin flip game, the geometric mean is actually negative. This means that over the long run, your wealth will trend towards zero, as shown in the graph used in the essay. The large 60% loss on tails is so damaging to your capital that even the 100% gain on heads can't consistently recover it when you're betting a percentage of your ever-changing bankroll.
Think of it like this: If you lose a substantial amount of money in one go, you have much less capital to invest and generate returns in the future. This disproportionately impacts your long-term growth.
So, while the expected value (arithmetic mean) might look appealing for a single bet, for repeated bets where your capital is at stake, the geometric mean is the more accurate measure of whether you'll make a profit in the long term.
In this specific game, the geometric mean is negative, leading to eventual ruin despite the positive arithmetic mean.
The Rise of Exponential Wealth Preference in Betting
This is where punters value each new dollar
more than the last — leading to ever-higher risk appetite.
In betting, this looks like:
- Increasing stake size after wins
- Going for the “life-changer” instead of consistent profit
- Betting systems that scale up quickly without built-in stop-losses
- The attraction to exotic bets over simple, profitable strategies
Many bettors
don't want to win slowly. They want to win big and quick, but this mindset often ends in ruin.
Technology and Culture Amplify It
The Jackpot Age essay describes how
technology and social media amplify everything and encourage punters to turn bad maths into a betting strategy.
- TikTok and Twitter are full of betslips showing massive wins
- Apps make it frictionless to place a bet, reload, and bet again
- Marketing from bookies glorifies multi-bet payouts and low-probability miracles
This makes punters believe jackpots are not just possible but common. It's
survivorship bias on steroids.
What You Can Do Differently
- Shift your mindset away from jackpot thinking and towards long-term edge
- Understand the truth about odds and take-out rates.
- Focus on strategy and edge over adrenaline and results
- Educate yourself on variance and volatility
Summary: Betting in the Jackpot Age
The essay highlights a cultural obsession with jackpots, turbocharged by social proof, that encourages
self-destructive risk-taking.
A better alternative?
Don’t chase the jackpot. Build the edge.
Think. Is this a bet you really want to place?