Greg Robinson-Riegler, psychology professor and self-proclaimed Minnesota State Fair enthusiast, shared his expertise with Mpls.St.Paul Magazine's State Fair special edition.
In the article, "The Psychology of Playing State Fair Games," Robinson-Riegler said people think their chances of winning are higher than they actually may be. He pointed to a study on the illusion of control, in which researchers gave subjects money to bet on games. “In a dice-roll game, people bet more money if they rolled the dice than if the experimenter rolled,” he said. “When you do it, you have control. But we way overestimate that degree of control.”