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ht equally lead men to expect a change of luck and continuance of luck unchanged, one or other view might fairly be expected to be confirmed by events. And on a single trial one or other event-that is, a win or a loss--must come off, greatly to the gratification of believers in luck. In one case they could say, I told you so, such luck as A's was bound to pull him through again'; in the other, ' I told you so, such luck was bound to change ': or if it were the loser of twenty trials who was in question, then, ' I told you so, he was bound to win at last'; or, ' I told you so, such an unlucky fellow was bound to lose.' But unfortunately, though the believers in luck thus run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, though they are prepared to find any and every event confirming their notions about luck, yet when a score of trials or so are made, as in our supposed case of a twenty-first game, the chances are that they would be contradicted by the event. The twenty constant winners would not be more lucky than the twenty constant losers; but neither would they be less
lucky. The chances are that about half would win and about half would lose. If one who really understands the laws of probability could be supposed foolish enough to wager money on either twenty, or on both, he would unquestionably regard the betting as perfectly even.
Let us return to the rest of our twenty millions of players, though we need by no means consider all the various classes into which they may be divided, for the number of these classes amounts, in fact, to more than a million.
The great bulk of the twenty millions would consist of players who had won about as many games as they had lost. The number who had won exactly as many games as they had lost would no longer form a large proportion of the total, though it would form the largest individual class. There would be nearly 3,700,000 of these, while there would be about 3,400,000 who had won eleven and lost nine, and as many who had won nine and lost eleven, these two classes together would outnumber the winners of ten games exactly, in the proportion of 90 to 11 or thereabouts. Speaking generally, it may be said that about two-thirds of the community would consider they had had neither good luck nor bad, though their opinion would depend on temperament in part. For some men are more sensitive to losses than to gains, and are ready to speak of themselves as unlucky, when a careful examination of their varying fortunes shows that they have neither won nor lost on the whole, or have won rather more than they have lost. On the
other hand, there are some who are more exhilarated by success than dashed by failure.
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