Superstition, Luck, Belief, and Gambling Today’s Agenda Superstition, Luck, Belief and Gambling

1. Superstition, Luck, Belief, and Gambling Today’s Agenda Superstition, Luck, Belief and Gambling Break Lec contd.

2. Are you Superstitious? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JvROoKGd0c

3. Looking into Luck • Are there lucky people? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46Ogw7CKoZg&feature=related • http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=6666646644836224767&q=lucky+people&total=3668&start=20&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

4. Luck Scale: How Do You Rank?

5. Luck Scale Details

6. What do folks think? • Luck an ambiguous concept...

7. A Few Gambling Stories • A little old lady sits at one machine. Her weathered hand reaches into her cup and pulls out a Loonie. She lifts the coin to the slot and drops it in. Then she grips the handle and pulls it. The first roller comes to a sudden halt — a cherry. The woman’s eyes widen as the second stops — another cherry. But a look of disgust enters her face when the third wheel finishes with a golden bell. "Sh–," she mutters under her breath. Louise Brodeur, 62, has been sitting at the same machine for more than two hours.... Her husband watches in dismay. • I can’t leave now she mutters I have just warmed it up... What we you didn’t know was that Louise scouted out just the right machine for a half hour before sitting down. • “Well, you know , the machine has to have the right feel”, she retorted to her husband . All he could reply was, “yeah, okay, so let’s go find the lucky one then!”

8. Immediately, after watching Louise ample away from the EGM, Larry who was sitting beside Louise jumps into her seat, dragging his few loonies with him. It just so happens that Lady Luck has now taken an interest in Larry. And... what do you know, plunk, plunk, plunk, goes the loonies, Ernie hits 7’s. A quick $500, nice.

9. A Few Gambling Stories: KISS THE DICE • A few feet away, a couple stand at the craps table. John shakes the dice. Lisa gives them a kiss and rubs John’s back as he tosses the cubes onto the table. • The dice come to a stop “snake ices” John throws his head back in defeat. Lost it all again... In the corner of the room a vague shadow can be glimpsed... • Lady Lucky chuckles in chagrin, “not tonight Johnnie boy”....

10. Gambling Rituals • There are few gamblers who don’t believe in superstitions, rituals or some form of luck. • But, • Even at a bingo hall. The surroundings aren’t as luxurious, the stakes aren’t as high but bingo players are notorious for their rituals.

11. Bingo Rituals (contd). • For instance, it’s common for people to have tables full of troll dolls, family pictures, elephant figurines with their trunks facing upwards and other trinkets. • People get into their routines, too. Some people rub their collars for good luck. Some have very specific requirements as to which cards they want to buy. Like the top card and the bottom card for example.

12. Bingo Rituals • Others have special ways they arrange their dabbers or a specific seat they take every time they play. • Sometime there are even 10 commandments of bingo posted behind the main counter.

13. Lottery Luck • So you won the lottery once, should you be considered a lucky person? • Maybe? No? • But, if you won it twice, are you lucky then? • http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5269937,00.html • http://www.wsbtv.com/news/10775688/detail.html

14. Lady Luck: Some History • Lady Luck is a personification of luck that is often involved in gambler's superstitions. • It may refer to: • Fortuna, in Roman mythology, goddess of fortune • Tyche, in Greek mythology, governed the fortune and prosperity of a city

15. According to Barrett... • We call someone lucky when we say chance favours hers. • But, Barrett doesn’t buy luck, instead he determines it to be a misinformed choice, at best a accidental regularity.

16. Themes from Reading 1 • Luck is curious concept, leading toward treachery. • Luck has become or for some is a projectable endowment (objective / it is / I have it / independent reality) • Luck has consequences regarding the gambler and gambling in terms of rationality, decision making, and probability.

17. Themes from Reading 1 • We should reject the idea that personal identity could include being lucky. • Luck is granted by persons who often fail to acknowledge or inquire into background assumptions that are tied to lucky events. • Thus, Barrett warns the gambler and the so called lucky person to be careful about beliefs and correlations given an event, situation, or experience that is deemed lucky.

18. Themes From Reading 1 • Luck is not predictable • Ultimately, luck is requires something unintended or otherwise unexpected, not something we are justified in expecting.

19. Looking Deeper Into Luck • Richard Wiseman • Holds an honors degree in Psychology from University College London and a doctorate in psychology from the University of Edinburgh. • For the past twelve years he has been the head of a research unit at the University of Hertfordshire, and in 2002 was awarded Britain's first Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology. • Prof Wiseman has established an international reputation for his research into unusual areas of psychology, including deception, luck and the paranormal. He has published over 40 papers in refereed academic journals, including articles in one of the world’s most respected science publications, Nature.

20. Themes from Reading 2 • Lucky events are determined by chance. • A lucky outcome does not indicate that future outcomes will be lucky or unlucky, because each occurrence is entirely independent of all others. • People aren’t inherently lucky, and although people understand this, this still fall victim to believing in luck, which impinges on their behaviour.

21. Themes from Reading 2 • For some persons luck is dispositional, comes in streaks, can be controlled, consistent over time, or at least harnessed.

22. 3 Experiments and their Findings • A series of experiments were conducted exploring the effect of a lucky event and personal beliefs about luck on future behaviour.

23. General Results • Key finding people who believe good luck is a stable personal factor took more risks. • Whereas those who thought luck was random took less risks. • Experiments indicated that experiencing a lucky event can affect people’s expectations about an unrelated task.

24. General Results (contd) • It was also found that those who believe in luck seem to accept that luck plays a positive role in their lives, thus one lucky event will surely give rise to another. • Or other words, they believe in lucky streaks, and gain confidence in making a subsequent decision based on past events. • While, those who hold belief in luck as suspect, do not necessarily belief their luck will continue and actually interpret the future will trepidation. • Interestingly, for those who believed in luck, independent of locus of control, self-esteem, optimism.

25. A lucky Streak: Beyond Probability • Randall Fitzgerald began his journalism career in 1974 in Washington, D.C. as an investigative reporter for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. • He has since written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and for 20 years was an editor with Reader’s Digest. Randall is the author of several books, including Lucky You: Proven Strategies You Can Use to Find Your Fortune, and his latest, The Hundred Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health.

26. A Lucky Scenario • Imagine that you’re driving a car when you notice that you’re low on gas. You also know that you don’t have any money or credit cards to buy more gas because you left them at home. There may be just enough fuel left to get you home and then to a gas station, but you can’t tell for sure. Do you feel that you would: most certainly make it; probably make it; have a slightly better than even chance of making it; have no feeling one way or the other; have a slightly better than even chance of running out of gas; probably run out of gas; most certainly run out of gas. • Let’s discuss.

27. Card Game: Are You Lucky • Everyone in Class Selects a Card… • Four initial winners • Four initial winner’s , then gamble their cards, hoping to win more. • Second chance card