14) More about luck…
Here is another little anecdote about what can happen to you: I played Black Jack one evening in the casino. I don’t remember whether I won or lost. In any case, I had chips in my pocket. I walked past a roulette table. The ball was rolling. I was struck by the thought that Otto had told me: “Everything on the 27th” (coincidentally, my birthday is on the 27th). I fumbled in my pocket, got hold of a chip, put it on 27. My gaze went from the roulette wheel, the rolling ball, back to the table. Oh, what a shock, there was a 100 DM chip. No, I didn’t want to risk that much on a single number. I took the chip up again, looked for a 20, too late, the game was cancelled “rien ne va plus”. The croupier looked at me while the ball was still rolling and said “You should never do that, take a chip down again,” then the announcement “27, rouge, impair, passe”. How right he was…
The questions now are: Did I give away 700 DM or 3500 DM? And: chaos theory or not: would the ball really have changed the course if my chip had stayed there?
By the way, I left the casino in a hurry. And my third favourite pastime is thinking about the meaning of life.
By the way, there is also the following phenomenon: a gambler loses, he loses a lot, over a long period of time. And the man has really bad and great bad luck, anyone could testify to it. What he does just doesn’t come. But still: he’s got the wrong side. The side that will lose in the long run. What then to think about this form of bad luck? I have found an answer: It’s not bad luck. Maybe it’s even luck. In any case, with the right interpretation, it is luck. The way to look at it is this way: If you play a game at a disadvantage, you should know it. If you don’t know it, you should try to interpret the results. There are certainly justifications for playing games, even with a big disadvantage. Lotto again: if 1 euro or even 10 euros a week doesn’t change anything, absolutely nothing in your life, 10 euros is like “I’ll bring my wife some flowers” or “today I’m going out to eat instead of cooking myself”. But the winnings could change your life completely. So why not gamble? Only play consciously. I know I’m on the wrong side, I get involved, the money invested is paid back to me with pleasure, with the lottery just with a little hope.
But if you lose too much, in principle you can also be grateful. You would have lost this amount of money at some point anyway, now you can stop and do meaningful things again. Because losing is no fun. And in the long run it wouldn’t bring any profit anyway.
I can try to express this in two other ways. If the man were to say: “Look what bad luck I had. I lost 10000 euros last month. That is 10% of my turnover. But I should have lost only 2000, because I had only a 2% disadvantage. Now I’ll prove to you that it’s true.” And after a year you see each other again and ask, he now tells you: “Yes, you see, I was right and the mathematics is correct. At the end of the year I have lost a total of 25000 euros. And that is exactly 2% of my turnover.”
But it would have been a bit wiser to stop after just one month, wouldn’t it? After all, he would have saved the further 15,000 euros in losses. And the time invested?
I like to put it this way for myself, because I undoubtedly also occasionally play a game with a disadvantage: “I don’t really want to win if I have a disadvantage. Above all, I don’t want to prove how much of a disadvantage I have.” It happens, I lost, too much because of me, but I quit, one way or another. Why should I get a reward for a mistake, a stupidity?
And there lies the third possible expression of this phenomenon: what would happen otherwise? What would happen to the person if he won instead of losing? Over a longer period of time? He would think he was lucky, for all I care. But he would go back every day, play the same game again, continue at a disadvantage. And he would then gradually feel the inexorable force of mathematics. He would lose, and chase the good times of winning big. And still lose everything. A good trade-off?
Therefore, the same advice over and over again: If you play, consciously. If you play the wrong side, consciously. Better still, look for the right side. Best of all, find it and play it. But even with a disadvantage, it can be enjoyable. But even then, continue to play consciously. I won something, I got lucky, I stop or I keep playing. But always in the appropriate scale. I’ve had bad luck, I’ve lost, I stop. Or I keep on playing. As above.
