Luck is probability taken personally
Penn Jillette with attribution to Chip Denman
Get a thousand people into a casino and by chance alone somebody will go on a run of wins. Aren’t they lucky? The casino doesn’t care as long as people keep gambling, though the casino must get more than the gamblers. Winners are special, lucky and belong. Lose too much to afford a room and you are a gambling addict that needs to seek help elsewhere. Thank you, come again with cash.
Gambling is OK with me. For many, gambling can be fun entertainment. If it was just some leisure fun, and sold like that, I doubt it would so appealing. The chance at a big win is so alluring. And, winners need not worry about losers.
We gambled ourselves a little in Vegas. I even won one game I thought was black jack, but was poker-based. I got lucky with two aces and help from a kind dealer and fellow gambler, not that human relations are left to chance as much as cards, though for me, everything is pretty much a crap shoot.
People have conversations when they are gambling too. That gambling talk can be fun. Not feeling lucky enough to double down or entertained enough to continue, we moved on with modest winnings that paid for some of our show tickets. I also like using my gambling budget for other activities, such as handing out some to people along the strip. I say it’s just as rewarding to gamble on a conversation with a person as it is to push a button, flip a card or roll dice.
Yeah, gambling talk is fun, and conversations with people around town is exciting too. For the teased cab driver anecdote, in my experience, Vegas cab drivers are happy to have people in town, and about half of them have questions about masking and perhaps government overreach based on small numbers reported back home in Africa and Asia.
Outside of the hotel and cabs, conversations often move towards circumstances and support.
I noticed fewer women than men on the strip looking for help. Not sure why, but women are commonly pushed even further to the fringes than men.
I met a man and asked if he needed anything other than the five bucks he just got. He said he needed an ambulance. I made sure he was sure before calling for help. Over the phone, he gave them every reason to come. Was he hurt? Yes. When did it happen? Just a few minutes ago. Does he have COVID symptoms? Yes. OK then, someone will be right over, and they were.
This person wanted somewhere to go and used our emergency services and me to get there. Turns out he’s a regular and I was more a pawn and sucker to our stressed responders than caring or heroic. I had nowhere better for him to go and can’t blame him for getting a warm room for a few hours, and maybe he needed urgent care this time.
I met another man of honor and integrity at a bus stop on Christmas morning. He held his head up, looked me in the eye, and took full responsibility for his path. He blamed no one but himself for any travails or shortcomings, and knew he could get himself back up again. I tried to point out how winners win from losers, but he insisted that he was responsible for his own fate. He had more integrity than gamblers who take any angle in hopes of winning. It was an inspiring Christmas conversation for me. Wish we could do more for him.
Winners and losers aren’t all selected by skill. Outcomes include stochastic and dynamic elements. Nobody is in this on their own. If we let the bottom fall out, we all lose. We can do better for all players.
Here is one hypothesis for what happens when we favor winners and push for bigger gambles. For this hypothesis, I approximate populations with negative binomial distributions (Poisson is same as negative binomial instance in which variance equals mean). I will also generalize from gambling to wealth, flimsy as that is.
Note that this is a hypothetical model. It’s not empirical data. I’m willing to look at real data in extended research for compensation.
Given this model of equal total wealth, if more goes to the most wealthy, then the median goes down and the number of those with net losses is greater than the number with net gains. Back in the US, you can easily find plenty of desperation and destitution within miles of the Vegas strip and virtually every other city center.
We need to reward innovators and leaders, but the more we push big winners, the more people need help on the other end. Giving it all to the wealthy and winners in voodoo trickle down economics isn’t enough.
Fortunately, we have choices. We can get our economic priorities back to building wealth in commodity and production cycles. We can reverse a history of inordinate rewards for the top. We can institute policies and incentives to produce more equitable distributions.
Even better, it’s not a zero sum game. Total wealth is not always equal. We can get more from moving it around wisely. In real life, symbiosis is real and exploitable. Here is a quick nature video for those who see youtube.
Back to economics, there are opportunities for win-win interactions, but not in gambling or strictly financial transactions. In our already financially skewed economy, we need to find a balance of rewarding the best and taking care of the rest. Even better will be minimizing the power and impact of financial cycles and maximizing well-being through housing, food, healthcare, education, and support.