Luck

Casino games are said to be games of chance, and yet the use of statistics allow the casino to make money. This leads to the philosophical question, “does luck really exist?”

To answer this question, let’s take a look at what is really going on when you play a gambling game. First, you make the decision to go to the casino, or are dragged there by your friends who want to go the casino. The people who want to go to the casino tend to do so for two common reasons. They are bored or they are feeling lucky. Boredom stems from lack of stimulation. Feeling lucky means that they have the overwhelming feeling that something good is going to happen to them, most likely caused by an over-abundance of endorphin hormones in the brain. Because the chemical reaction is associated with luck, as are casino games, the neural pathways of the brain tend to link them together. If the above hypophysis is true, then one would assume that most people in a casino are feeling lucky.

We know that not all of the players are going to be winners, so obviously the feeling of luck is not precognitive. The people who did not win, simply shrug and say that maybe next time they will win. Not everyone leaving the casino has lost money. For the winners, their feelings have been confirmed, re-enforcing the link between casinos and luck.

Whether they win or lose is determined by the outcome of the many games (most likely games of a specific game) that they play. The outcome is said to be determined by luck. That luck is in reality determined by some physical objects that are obeying the laws of physics. In the case of cards, the results are largely based on the shuffling of the deck. Shuffling is just the accumulation of changing orders for the cards, but because there are so many variables at stake, the results are not determinable by a normal human. Therefore, the order of the shuffled deck is said to be random. The random order of the deck is simply a byproduct of the complexity of the universe, which is only complex due to the huge number of variables at play.

The random position of the cards in the shuffled deck determines the order of the cards. Other factors, such as the number of players who are playing the game and your position at the table will determine which cards that you receive. The rules of the game, which statistically favour the house, determine if you win.

This leads us back to statistics. To simplify the mater, let us condense all the variables into a simpler concept. The coin toss (the toss is the result of lots of factors just like the shuffle, but ignore that and just think about the result coming up heads half the time and tails the other half). From our earlier discussion on statistics you know that we were to flip the coin an infinite number of times there should be an equal number of heads as tails. If we were to grab a group of ten of those flips, the balance of heads to tails may not be equal. We could have 10 heads and no tails, or 10 tails and no heads, or any combination adding up to 10. For arguments sake, lets say the group consisted of 10 heads. The next group of 10 could also be an additional 10 heads. After all, the odds for 10 heads in a row are only 1 in 1024. There is no rule in statistics that say the flips have to balance out, but we know that in the long run they will.

So, is there luck? Sort of. Luck is just the position you happen to have in the great cosmic coin toss. A lucky person happens to have more heads than tails. An unlucky person has more tails than heads. A persons’ luck changes when that persons streak of coins changes from heads to tails or vice-versa. That change may never happen, or it may be short lived. There is no way of knowing what group of coins from the infinite number of flips that you received.