gambler's fallacy

n. An erroneous belief that random events such as occur in honest games of chance are self-correcting processes so that a run of bad luck will correct itself with an equal run of good luck. In actuality a chance process is not affected by prior occurrences so that after tossing a coin and getting 10 heads in a row, the occurrence of a tail on the next toss remains the same as if any other result had occurred in the previous 10 tosses.