# Could there ever be a scientific way to measure luck?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 3, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727 "2014-03-03T02:43:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@manwithnobrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manwithnobrain)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/1 "2014-03-03T02:43:48Z")
To begin with, this is my first post! I salute you all!
Been visiting SD for years now, and there’s some serious love goin’ on here!
So, enough blah-blah-let’s go to the core…
Being a phenomenically unlucky person myself (no tears, please), I always wondered if anyone ever attempted to measure the factor of luck!
By defining ‘luck’ I wouldn’t want to stick to cases like people winning the lottery, etc.
I was actually thinking if there’s a scientifically precise way of evaluating how lucky (or unlucky) a person could be, i.e. based on percentage perhaps.
My question may sound stupid to some-I totally understand that-BUT, I insist that luck can be considered as a major factor, affecting our lives…
So, I’d be glad to hear any ideas, or reference from you guys…
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/2 "2014-03-03T02:45:25Z")
Institute the [Birthright Lotteries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teela_Brown) for several generations, and then see who’s a product of every generation of winners?
ETA: I think we have a Doper who might have something to say about this subject.
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### Author:  [@manwithnobrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manwithnobrain)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/3 "2014-03-03T03:01:04Z")
Hi there, and thank you for your interesting article!
What I originally meant, is i.e. by comparing a person who is born in good health, in a nice family, blessed with good looks, high intellect and wealth, to a person who is born poor and handicapped…what % of luck difference would these two guys have?
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### Author:  [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/4 "2014-03-03T03:04:57Z")
Before anyone can measure luck, one would need to define it. How would you define luck?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/5 "2014-03-03T03:12:57Z")
Yes, there exists a way. It’s called statistics. The result of the measurements is clear: Luck does not exist as a trait, only as an outcome.
That is to say, some people have been luckier than others in the past, but those people are not in some way inherently lucky: Their luck in the future will, on average, be no worse than those who have had bad luck in the past.
Note also that luck is not the same thing as success. People who have been successful in the past are more likely to be successful in the future. But the reasons for that success are things other than luck.
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### Author:  [@manwithnobrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manwithnobrain)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/6 "2014-03-03T03:17:47Z")
Nnnnnnnnnnnnice one! Thanks
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### Author:  [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/7 "2014-03-03T03:30:40Z")
Paging Teela Brown, Teela Brown…
Otherwise, you might engender an argument that says true luck is a violation of at least one of the axioms of science.
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/8 "2014-03-03T04:29:24Z")
I agree that the general answer is statistics but is also a definition problem. Some people certainly hit improbable if not seemingly impossible outcomes both positive and negative but that still doesn’t tell you everything.
For example, you have the story of [Violet Jessop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Jessop) who survived the sinking of the Titantic as well as its sister ship HMHS Britannic. There is more. She also was on board the RMS Olympic when it collided with another ship. Those were the three mostly identical ships of the same fleet and she was on board all of them when they were destroyed or threatened. It is quite unusual but is that luck? One could argue that any person that was never aboard any of the three was luckier than she ever was. The same is true for [Tsutomu Yamaguchi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi) who happened to be on site and survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bomb detonations over Japan. Is that good luck or really bad luck?
Other cases are more confusing. There have been several people that have won large lotteries twice. It is surprisingly inevitable when you look at the statistics behind it. However, none can beat [Joan Ginther](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/joan-ginther-wins-texas-l_n_645520.html) who has won the Texas lottery an astounding 4 times for $21 million so far. We don’t know if that is true luck or not. She is also a semi-hermit and also a college math professor. They know she isn’t truly cheating but she may have invented some lottery hack just like [Marjorie and Gerald Selbee](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/how-to-hack-the-lottery/2011/08/24/gIQA3yZHbJ_blog.html) did for the Massachusetts Win-Fall scratch ticket game.
Luck can go the other way as well. There are people that lose all of their kids and their house within days of each other in separate accidents. You can use statistics to calculate the individual probabilities of different events. However, the universe of possible outcomes is infinite so it makes the overall improbability of real-world outcomes seem much higher than they are. In other words, there are an infinite number of events that are in the 1 in a septillion range or even higher but there are so many of those that a few of them are inevitable. Some of those will be very good and some will be very bad. Random clustering of major events that affect a single person is the best definition that I can think of for ‘good luck’ versus ‘bad luck’ and there is no way around that. Outcomes that are the result individual choices and decisions (like drug use or lack of work ethic) don’t fall into the luck category at all.
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### Author:  [@Tacit\_Knowledge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tacit_Knowledge)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/9 "2014-03-03T10:19:50Z")
I think you’re making the mistake of labeling "luck"a phenomenon. It’s the same error people often make with regards to the “laws of nature”. The laws don’t dictate what nature does, they merely describe observed apparent relationships.
Same with luck. Luck is not a thing. It is only a label tacked onto occurrences that seem statistically unlucky. Or, in the more casual sense, onto favorable happenings (good luck) or unfavorable happenings (bad luck). But “luck” itself is only a judgement call that happens after the fact; an arbitrary label.
The reality is nothing more than statistics, probability and situational chains of events.
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### Author:  [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/10 "2014-03-03T11:08:29Z")
You could try dowsing rods, but they seem unlikely to work for any job.
To be serious, Perhaps we should be better at measuring luck.
“He was lucky to survive the crash”.
Well no, he was unlucky to be in a terrible crash.
And anyway , engineers designed the vehicle to be safe (safer) …
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### Author:  [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/11 "2014-03-03T13:26:30Z")
Here’s my take: Let’s define a property called “luck” to mean the unconscious ability to influence random events or, possibly, chaotic systems to have results that are consistently statistically improbable. (Good lord, that’s hard to parse.) The easiest test of this that would produce useful, measurable results would be something like a [coin flip](http://www.basic-mathematics.com/coin-toss-probability.html) experiment. You could even set up tests to see if there is “good luck” vs. bad, by announcing that “heads” results are favorable or rewarded somehow, and see whether the subject’s presence and interest correlates to the desired result or not.
Now that I think about it, “luck” defined this way would be rather indistinguishable from certain “psychic” abilities, if they existed.
Hope this makes sense; I just woke up. 🙂
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/12 "2014-03-03T13:41:01Z")
Psychologist Richard Wiseman has examined differences between people who consider themselves lucky and people who consider themselves unlucky, and found differences in traits affecting both how people would perceive their lives, but also in the likelihood of positive events happening.
> [@](#):
>
> In addition Wiseman has studied the principles of good and bad luck, publishing the results in the self-help book The Luck Factor. He showed that both good and bad luck result from measurable habits; for example, lucky people, by expecting good luck, might expend more effort in their endeavours, resulting in more success, reinforcing their belief in good luck. Lucky people are outgoing and observant and therefore have many more chance encounters than unlucky people, each of which could bring a lucky opportunity. Moreover lucky people are more likely to look on the bright side of ‘bad’ encounters. In a mental exercise describing being shot during a bank robbery, lucky people considered themselves lucky not to have been killed while unlucky people considered themselves unlucky to have been shot.
> **[Richard Wiseman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wiseman)**
>
> Richard J. Wiseman (born 17 September 1966\[citation needed\]) is a professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal Society, The Swiss Economic Forum, Google and Amazon. He is a fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a patron of Humanists UK. Wiseman is also the creator of the YouTube channels Quirkology and In59Seconds.
> Wiseman was born a...
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/13 "2014-03-03T14:07:23Z")
It would be simple to set up a test.
Give the test subject a die. Every time he rolls an even number, he wins a dollar. Every time he rolls an odd number, he loses a dollar. Have him roll a hundred, or two hundred, or a thousand times. The null hypothesis is that he would end up close to breaking even. If “luck” is an actual thing, and he has it, he should end up winning a significant amount of money.
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### Author:  [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/14 "2014-03-03T14:55:56Z")
> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> It would be simple to set up a test.
>
> Give the test subject a die. Every time he rolls an even number, he wins a dollar. Every time he rolls an odd number, he loses a dollar. Have him roll a hundred, or two hundred, or a thousand times. The null hypothesis is that he would end up close to breaking even. If “luck” is an actual thing, and he has it, he should end up winning a significant amount of money.
That’s a great example of the kind of test I was referring to above.
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### Author:  [@kaltkalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaltkalt)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/15 "2014-03-03T18:44:39Z")
Isn’t it relative? I win the lottery and then I get robbed and murdered because of the money. Was I lucky?
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/16 "2014-03-03T20:45:28Z")
FWIW, I read in some vet book how vets always are on their guard for illnesses, trauma, or whatever with dogs named “Lucky.” Obviously some folk cynicism, but it certainly makes it worse psychologically.
I know slightly a woman who named her child, legally, Lucky. Ugh.
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### Author:  [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/17 "2014-03-03T21:15:16Z")
> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> It would be simple to set up a test.
I like to use a piece of toast buttered on one side; start flipping it and see how often it lands buttered-side-down.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/18 "2014-03-03T21:58:19Z")
> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> It would be simple to set up a test.
>
> Give the test subject a die. Every time he rolls an even number, he wins a dollar. Every time he rolls an odd number, he loses a dollar. Have him roll a hundred, or two hundred, or a thousand times. The null hypothesis is that he would end up close to breaking even. If “luck” is an actual thing, and he has it, he should end up winning a significant amount of money.
Define “significant”.
You could only measure “luck” that way to some confidence level. The more times you ran the experiment, the better confidence you would have in the result-- assuming luck, as a phenomenon, does not vary over time and/or space. So, yeah, whoever said, above, that you need to define luck first is spot on. You can’t measure something unless you know what it is.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/19 "2014-03-03T22:21:38Z")
> [@Elemenopy](#):
>
> That’s a great example of the kind of test I was referring to above.
It’s being conducted at casinos all over the world right now. I think it’s pretty much concluded that luck doesn’t exist, at least in casinos.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-ever-be-a-scientific-way-to-measure-luck/682727/20 "2014-03-04T00:28:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Define “significant”.
>
> You could only measure “luck” that way to some confidence level. The more times you ran the experiment, the better confidence you would have in the result-- assuming luck, as a phenomenon, does not vary over time and/or space. So, yeah, whoever said, above, that you need to define luck first is spot on. You can’t measure something unless you know what it is.
It would be pretty trivial to calculate a p value for any set of these data. Just pick whatever cutoff you want.
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