When Bad Luck is Good Luck

“Las Vegas exists because of a bunch of people who get overly excited about bad math.”

-          Penn Gillette

Through my day job I’ve had to fly into Las Vegas several times – much of what I do (without getting into specifics) deals with remote work. In this case, I was headed to a small spec in the middle of the desert and Las Vegas was the closest airport – and it was still another 3+ hour drive.

I ran into some friends during an overnight layover once and we decided to hit the town; our definition of “hitting the town” didn’t involve any gambling for me as I adhere to Penn Gillette’s take. 

One of my friends has some of the most astounding luck – both good and bad – that I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t require Las Vegas to show it – it just follows him there. It’s always fun to see what luck is in store for him wherever we went.

We’d scheduled to see a comedian that night. We had great tickets – front row, dead center. To kill some time my friend entered a poker tournament that had a $200 buy-in. I watched him from the peanut gallery. Early on, he went all-in (betting all of his chips) based on the two cards he had on his hand – and nothing else. For those of you not familiar with poker – Texas Hold ‘Em in particular – you begin with these two cards and there are subsequent cards that come out, each giving remaining players opportunities to raise the pot of chips. One person called him and they both showed their cards. My friend had two kings – the second highest possible hand you can begin with. The other guy showed his cards – a kind and six – and merely commented, “Oh, I guess I shouldn’t have done that.” My friend had a 94%+ chance of winning the hand by the time all subsequent cards would show; however, his opponent got two sixes and bucked the odds. My friend was done. He got up and left the table in a pretty foul mood. Admittedly, I would, too. The sourness is a combination of someone winning when they clearly made the wrong decision – and then cheering that luck is one their side. In poker, pretty much anything can happen… it’s just when it does luck appears to be a cruel mistress.

Now here’s the insult to injury…

Later that night we went to see the comedian. My friend was looking forward to some laughs to shake off the bad beat he took earlier. The headlining comedian had an opening act: It was the same guy that beat my friend at poker. For the next 20 minutes, my friend sat there clinching his fists. You see, not only did luck want my friend to lose at poker, but luck also wanted my friend to be forced to sit listening to him for 20 minutes. Needlessly to say, the night didn’t improve. My friend wanted to gamble roughly $2,000 that night but wasn’t in the mood.

That $2,000 would have surely ended up in the coffers of Las Vegas. Losing $200 and the forced watching of the guy who beat him made me wonder if something else was set up for my friend – to keep his money. It’s not statistically impossible for these events to happen, but these are things that are usually reserved for the impossibilities found in movies.

The next time you get a “bad beat” with luck, consider that it was actually good luck saving you from something far worse.