Ask 5,000 guys to flip 7 coins each.

[Yavin4]

This is 100% truth. Unusual success requires unusual luck.

Ask 5,000 guys to flip 7 coins each. Find a guy who flips 7 tails. Ask him about the key to his success, whether it was his habits, work ethic, religious devotion. He will have plenty to say. Maybe he will write a book or start a podcast.

Link to tweet

[bucolic_frolic]

1. I agree, but I will say it helps to start with $1.5 million, great understanding of something, and

critical insight at choke points, like how to eliminate or buy competitors, or use the legal system to grab control of something or some others.

Without all of that, you just ordinary, or headed downhill.

[Yavin4]

5. If you're "starting" with $1.5 million...

then you've already achieved the unusual luck part.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Yes, that's sort of my point. I doubt luck carries much heft in the equation.

People starting with nothing have little hope. Exponential growth doesn't mean much when you start with 2 cents. Which, btw, describes me.

[brush]

8. Here's an interesting caveat/bar bet to "people starting with nothing have little hope.

If you took a single penny and doubled it everyday for a monty, by day 30, you would have $5,368,709.12.

It's a fact. It's good bar converstion starter or bet. Ask someone would they take S100,000 or a penny doubled everyday for a month.

[Disaffected]

2. That is an appropriate description of

investment "advisors" and various stock promoters. They may run into a streak of luck, rise quickly in prominence and just as quickly fall into oblivion (or jail).

[3Hotdogs]

3. I remember reading about roulette - that was when I was interested in gambling. Anyways,

Last edited Sun Jun 4, 2023, 02:36 PM - Edit history (1)

there was was a paragraph about some guys in a casino, watching the tailboard. Black had shown up about 15 or 16 times in a row. Then up to 25. People started to gather around the table, putting money on red. Then they continue putting money on red for several more spins. Some increased their bet.

I remember reading that black turned out for more than 30 times in a row.

Then there was my boss. (Alcohol was involved) but we were at Harrah's in A.C. He bought $2K in chips and asked the dealer if she was wearing black or red panties. I guess she lied and $2K disappeared before his very eyeballs.

I don't know what the moral of any of this is.

[Timewas]

4. Moral is

It is called gambling for a reason..

[ret5hd]

7. She shoulda said "green" or "none".

See how fast he puts his money on that.

[Beakybird]

9. This idea is 100% borrowed from Warren Buffett.

Well Warren Buffett said this before there were podcasts. Not a Warren Buffett fan, but it's a good point.

[former9thward]

13. Yes, he has said it many times.

And lately he has said "and it doesn't hurt to live to 92" so investments can grow. I am a fan. I never buy individual stocks. I have just bought Berkshire stock which is like buying the best of the market with an intelligent guide behind it. I have done well by doing so.

[central scrutinizer]

10. Back when I taught statistics

I had a couple coin tricks. .(1)I asked students when they were home to flip a coin. If it came up heads, they had to flip it 200 more times, carefully writing, in sequence, their results : TTHTHHHT… If the first flip came up tails, they had to simply write down a sequence of 200 Hs and Ts, pretending they had actually done the experiment. Then next class I collected their papers. I could tell at a glance whether they had actually done the experiment or not. I was right about 80% of the time. The tell? In a real sequence of 200 flips, there is a high probability of a run of six. So I looked for 6 or more Hs or Ts in a row. Those who were making up their “data” were reluctant to write down that many in a row.

(2) I would tell the class I was going to flip a coin. How many thought heads, how many tails? Usually half and half. I would announce the result, say heads, and repeat. Now the predictions were about 2/3 tails - 1/3 heads. I would flip it again and announce heads (lying if necessary), repeat, repeat. I would ask why almost everyone was now voting tails.

[Mosby]

11. Lot of people fall for the gambler's fallacy

Lottery departments do an interesting trick with their scratchers, in the grid they will seed numbers just one digit off of one of the winning numbers. Players think they got close, and often keep buying tickets.

Just FYI, all the winning tickets are known to the lottery, they are not random. They seed about 10-15 winning tickets in a book of 30. I know this because I used to be a lottery retailer, sold about 1/2 million dollars worth per year of stratchers and lotto and I had some wealthy customers who would buy entire books. Interestingly, scratchers outsell lotto about 3 to 1 in dollars. Makes sense if you think about the price, in AZ they go up to 30 dollars each.

[3Hotdogs]

14. N.J. has $50.00 cards.

[central scrutinizer]

17. I've never gambled except low stakes poker with friends

No lottery tickets, roulette, slots, etc. games that 100% chance are stupid. A chicken shitting on a number has the same chance of winning as me.

[Girard442]

12. Or you could be Donald Trump and just lie about the coin tosses.

[Celerity]

16. +10000000000000000

[unblock]

15. In business, a lot of it is being in the right place when luck hits

A lot of success is running a ho-hum business and just being there when being there when demand for your product skyrockets or a competitor self-destructs or interest rates plummet or a helpful law passes or whatever, and you're just lucky enough to be in a position to take full advantage.

Bill gates was lucky to have rich parents but also very lucky to be in the software business at a time when few people understood its financial value. The guy who wrote dos gave it to him for $50,000. Microsoft might not be the behemoth it became had he negotiated for, say, 30% of all revenue. Well in any event, gates would not have been nearly so rich