OT: Does luck exist?

Submitted by jscbus on

If it does, I'm one hell of an unlucky person.

 

Would this make it hereditary? My father has welcomed me into his world of gambling over the weekend. Specifically, poker.

 

Last night, we traveled to Talking Stick, a casino/resort of sorts located in Scottsdale, Arizona. He won some money, lost some money, but ended last night in "the green".

 

He thinks he is just a straight boss when it comes to both Hold Em' and Omaha High/Low, claiming that he would make upwards of $50k a year from poker alone if he were just MORE LUCKY.

 

Luck, to me, is intangible. It's happenstance. Probability. IMO, no one person could consistently remain luckier than another. It would be lucky to flip a coin and land heads ten times in a row, but I guarantee you it will happen eventually if you flip that coin long enough.

 

My father, on the other hand, cites a time when my grandfather was in Ohio stadium with a friend. They announced that someone's vehicle was on fire in the parking lot (for some reason) and my grandpa's friend turned to him and said: "You know that's my car".

 

So, he's unluckier than the tens of thousands of others in attendance? How many other people turned to someone and said THAT'S MY CAR ARRRRRGGG WHERE'S A POOP COOLER?!?! 

 

To me man, it's just a hunch. Maybe his car was susceptible to explosion given it's condition. For the record, it was in fact his car that was on fire.

 

Nonetheless, what say you on luck?

Danwillhor

July 26th, 2014 at 10:49 PM ^

but it is odd that I've never won in any of the roughly 20 scratch-offs I've been gifted over the years (don't play lotto) while my bro in law will buy a ticket every few days and hit 50+ on at last one. Wrong even go into his casino "luck". Kind of guy that will jokingly drop 20 on a single roulette pick and win. He never leaves one down or even with less than up a few hundred. It's crazy lol.

Nitro

July 27th, 2014 at 9:44 PM ^

Seems like an arrogant belief.  There is far more to the universe than we'll ever come close to understanding.  It probably doesn't fit our simplistic and blunt luck/unluck categories, but there's more to things than the alternate simplistic and blunt paradigm of raw deterministic probability.  There does appear to be truth in the observation that "chance favors the prepared mind."

ohioNblue33

July 26th, 2014 at 4:15 PM ^

Law of Attraction states what your mindset is is what your life is around you is. So if you keep thinking you are unlucky you will probably will continue your unlucky streak! So think positive!

LordGrantham

July 26th, 2014 at 4:21 PM ^

Reminds of the old joke from R.E. Shay:

"Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't work for the rabbit."

AR-15

July 26th, 2014 at 4:26 PM ^

Nah.  If I make a 3/4 court shot in basketball, it's not luck; that's just what I'm capable of.  Same with sinking a 50 foot putt.  

LSAClassOf2000

July 26th, 2014 at 4:45 PM ^

I have always held the view that luck is simply "probability taken personally", as it was once put to me. It always seems like there are a fair number of people that claim there is a predictability to the unpredictable, an error in reasoning which is sort of central to the gambler's fallacy.

I have also observed people who seem to believe in "luck" also erroneously try to causally connect events which occur in sequence, something which may or may not be true but when dealing with random events - like rolling dice in craps - your roll of a six did not cause your roll of the eight on your next turn.

I've also seen people attribute "luck" simply to things which are beyond their control, like a condition or place of birth, which always makes me wonder why one would use the word at all then except for its accepted literary value in such descriptions. 

BiSB

July 26th, 2014 at 4:49 PM ^

As a way to describe things that happened or didn't happen? Sure, luck exists. As a causal force or predictive indicator? No, very much not.

Inuyesta

July 27th, 2014 at 3:29 AM ^

Perfectly put, BiSB, couldn't improve on it.

OP: in the case of your dad, I feel compelled to point out that in poker, even though it is certainly predominantly a game of skill, it is possible for negative (or positive) variance to play a profound role in your results.  If everyone played an infinite number of hands skill would be the only thing separating them, but it has been shown that people can run below expectation for hundreds of thousands of hands at a time.  Especially if your dad mostly plays live poker, where a person would be lucky (heh) to play a few hundred thousand hands in their entire lives, that can certainly be a factor.

However, such downswings are (obviously) very rare, striking only a few unfortunate souls far from the center of the bell curve.  Taking the prior probabilities into account, it's much more likely that your dad is simply not as good as he thinks he is.  In fact, taking into account the prior probabilities about what sorts of people complain about how much money they could be making at poker if they were luckier, I'd hazard to guess that he's actually a losing player, or perhaps breakeven at best.

enlightenedbum

July 26th, 2014 at 7:44 PM ^

Good branding and historical anti-Catholic bigotry making American Catholics band together, which increased their available talent pool.  If you're the #1 destination for like a fifth of a nation for 40 or so years, you're going to get most of the good Catholic players.

SECcashnassadvantage

July 26th, 2014 at 5:03 PM ^

If you make a 50 foot putt out of 20 tries it isn't luck. If you make it the first shot it likely won't happen again, unless you practice a shit ton.