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What's luck got to do with it? | page 1, 2
"The improbability of the outcome is one factor," he says. "You are obviously luckier if you win a 1-in-1,000 shot than if you win a 1-in-2 shot. But the other factor is the extent to which you gain. You're luckier if you gain a $1,000 than if you gain $2. That's the idea. One very rough measure of luck is just to multiply the probability by the gain. The luckiest outcome would be to have a very long shot for a very great amount: that is, to win something like an awfully big lottery." Like Pasquale Benenati, who's taken home five California lottery jackpots totaling $5.18 million -- a feat of luck that even Rescher calls "phenomenal." Benenati credited his good luck to "faith in myself." Of course, just because you haven't won five jackpots doesn't mean you're jinxed. "We don't always realize how lucky we are," Rescher reasons. "If you close your eyes and walk across the street and don't get hit, you may not realize how many narrow escapes you had. You don't appreciate the extent of your luck." The paradox of luck is that even if you're unlucky, like that gentleman at the coffee shop, you may be luckier than you think. The National Weather Service reported that on average three people per year are killed by lightning. Marjorie Cox, an Ohio housewife was hit twice in 1996. Unlucky? Sure -- who wants to live in Ohio? But on the other hand, Marjorie is still alive, and that's not a bad bargain. Rescher dismisses the idea that some people might possess a magnetic quality that attracts good or bad luck. "Low probability events do have to happen. Once good fortune has come your way, it's easy to think of yourself as having, in some sense, deserved it. I think that's something that reflects the human tendency to want the world to be rational to an extent that in all likelihood it isn't."
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