Eyes Wide Open by Isaac Lidsky

Author:Isaac Lidsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-02-21T16:50:57+00:00

CHAPTER 5

Counting Your Luck

Luck is believing you’re lucky.

—Tennessee Williams

Imagine that I’m trying to sell you a new car. I tell you that over time this car is guaranteed to consume more gas than the other model you’re looking at. It will require more maintenance and repairs, too. The neat thing about this car, though, is that sometimes a gallon of gas will put as many as one hundred miles under your tires. Other times, however, a full tank might only get you a few blocks from your last fill-up. Likewise, you might go years without a maintenance problem, or see the car in and out of the shop over and over again for weeks. The only thing you know for certain is that this car will cost more in the long run. That’s guaranteed.

What do we call this car? The Casino. You’ll have good times and bad times as you motor through life in the Casino, guaranteed to lose in the end. Just like blackjack, craps, or roulette. Come on in and give it a spin. No free drinks, alas, but we’ll throw in free floor mats if you buy today!

Nobody would want the Casino car, but many people enjoy casino gambling. Why? Among common answers you’ll hear: it is entertaining and exciting. In my experience, however, it is only entertaining and exciting when you “win.” It is neither entertaining nor exciting to get wiped out early, to lose in your first half hour of play more than you planned to risk all night, to stand around for hours watching your friends gamble while you sulk. Hit a winning streak, however, and you’re on top of the world.

Why? We know that every single bet is a losing proposition by meticulous design. Put $100 down on a blackjack table, play with perfect mathematical rigor, and the casino will give you back about $99 on average. Most other games pay even less. That is how it works. Yet many of us feel an urge to place the bet nonetheless. And we invest in the outcome more than the capital at risk. We invest ourselves emotionally.

We hate to lose, hate it when luck is against us. Spend $100 on Cirque du Something tickets and $200 on a fancy dinner with very little food, and you don’t think twice about it. But lose $50 at the roulette wheel on the way back to your hotel room, and you’ll go to bed miffed. Even if you were “entertained” while you lost it.

We yearn to win, to feel lucky. A fancy lawyer wraps up a two-hour conference call in his Las Vegas hotel room, billing a thousand bucks for each, then complains to his buddies about having to work, spends four hours in the casino, wins a few hundred bucks, and feels like a champion, a titan of good fortune. It is a thrill. He feels lucky.

There’s nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with gambling, as long as you do it responsibly. Casinos artfully exploit the way you perceive luck.

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