# Are some people just "lucky"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 1, 2014, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070 "2014-10-01T09:43:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/21 "2014-10-04T00:49:06Z")
With over seven billion people in the world, surely there must be at least one or two people who get more statistical breaks than others, statistically speaking? Where the confirmation bias comes from is assuming that person X must be one of those people. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/22 "2014-10-04T02:53:35Z")
I guess I’d say that even if it’s just random clusters of goodness that made you seem lucky, when you had it, you were lucky that day. Of course, past performance is no guaranty of future results… I do think that it’s true that some people react to good and bad events differently. And it’s not just “lucky” people being very “up” with their wins. I think “unlucky” people often dwell in negativity. Of course bad luck stinks, but some people “seem” to have a lot of it simply because they maximize it so much by taking unecessary risks and then dwelling upon their misfortunes. ---
**Author:** ![Timetrvlr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Timetrvlr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timetrvlr)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/23 "2014-10-04T03:51:24Z")
I believe that some people are just plain lucky. My son is one of them. He calls the Casino the Bank of Casino. Occasionally he drops in there and plays the slots. Maybe he will win a little or lose a little but when he needs money for something, he seems to win enough to buy it for cash. I never gamble because I always lose but he wins way more often than he should. Years ago, he lived in Las Vegas and said when he entered a casino, he’d walk by the slots and sometimes one would “twinkle at him” and when he played it, he won. Other times none would “twinkle” and he left without playing. I know it’s downright superstitious and defies logic but his results over the years have convinced me that a few rare people are just naturally lucky. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/24 "2014-10-04T08:16:12Z")
Richard Wiseman has made an academic study of luck and his book, [The Luck Factor](http://www.amazon.com/The-Luck-Factor-Essential-Principles/dp/1401359418) is amazing and well worth a read. Here’s an excerpt I found particularly interesting: > [@](#): > > I gave both [self-reported] lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs, whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the second page of the newspaper contained the message: “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than 2 inches high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it. > > For fun, I placed a second large message halfway through the newspaper: “Stop counting. Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250.” Again, the unlucky people missed the opportunity because they were still too busy looking for photographs. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/25 "2014-10-04T13:54:37Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Humans have a defect where we perceive actual randomness to be less random than fake randomness. That’s not a defect, except in the understanding of the meaning of the word “random”. If you think random means “no pattern”, you are wrong. Random means that patterns can exist, but only as frequently as probability dictates that they would. So if you see a pattern, you say “it’s not random”, even if that pattern can be expected to occur in a probability sample of random selection. For example, if you have a matrix of a thousand squares,and put 100 chips on it randomly, there well be a few clusters of closely-grouped chips. The only way the matrix would not display a few groupings would be if an operator intentionally (not randomly) placed the chips so there would not be any, but that would be characterized by an observer as more random than the actual random arrangement. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/26 "2014-10-04T16:17:53Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Well, I was born: > > 1. White > 2. with good genes > 3. of diligent nurturing parents > 4. speaking English > 5. In the USA during peaceful and non-tyrannical times > 6. in the industrial era > 7. with 99th %ile intellect > 8. and got away with all the stupid, destructive or incriminating things I’ve ever done, so far. > > I’d call that luck. You just\* couldn’t \*leave out #7, could you? Had to throw that little gem in there. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/27 "2014-10-04T16:46:58Z")
I’m with you, I absolutely believe in luck. I win too many card games to think otherwise… ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/28 "2014-10-04T17:02:26Z")
So speaking of lucky, I like to joke that I’m super unlucky and that God or Satan (whoever is in charge of bad luck) has it out for me, but in all sincerity, I’ve always thought of myself as a super lucky person, but thought bad luck jokes were just funnier. And then I realized, and I only recently realized this, that in many ways I’m lucky, and in many ways I am not, you know, just like everyone else. I just \*feel \*lucky and for no good reason. Like I was unemployed for 7 freaking months (!!!) and managed to find a gig right at the last minute. I couldn’t get over how lucky I was. Uhh, no, being lucky would have been never being laid off in the first place. Or like last week when I’d just missed my train and the next one wasn’t coming for 15 minutes. I figured it would be faster to walk, and I felt lucky about it because it happened on a night that wasn’t obnoxiously humid, so the walk would actually be pleasant. Somehow I forgot how unlucky I was that not only had I missed my train by literal seconds, but that the rest were so backed up that another one wouldn’t be coming for something like thrice as long as it would normally take. Or like when I found a gig at my dream company. Still can’t get over how lucky that was, but then I remember that I actively refused to even talk to anyone who wasn’t offering exactly what I was looking for, so why should I feel so lucky that I got what I made a plan to get? I dunno, I just feel like that was a lot of luck involved. Because there was, right? These maybe aren’t the best examples in the world, but they immediately come to mind. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070/29 "2014-10-04T17:51:57Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > You just\* couldn’t \*leave out #7, could you? Had to throw that little gem in there. Why not? That was luck, too, just as much so as the other “little gems”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-people-just-lucky/700070.md?page=1)