ARJUN SHUKLA

The odds are always fifty-fifty. But most of us anticipate better odds, or better luck, after a bad streak, as if now we are due for good luck.

This ‘Gambler’s Fallacy’ assumes that probability as a whole has memory, and if the coin is flipped ten times and shows ‘head...

• If you really lost because of bad luck, what's the point of telling a story about it
• There's nothing you can learn from it

Luck is a hard thing to prove. There is no real thing we can call luck, but we can create a real object and transfer luck to it, such as a lucky penny or a lucky charm.

These lucky objects give the feeling of a security blanket. They provide an ill...