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Unusually Lucky Persons / Families

mikelegs

mikelegs

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Jul 31, 2001
Messages
361
First off, apologies if I'm threading something that's already been discussed. It seems to be happening more and more these days.

I was wondering if anyone knows any 'Lucky Families' out there. I don't really believe in luck, but a friend of mine's family certainly seemed to have plenty of it. They would win contests all the time. It first sank in one day when his mom say, "Hey Dan, your father just won a nice big TV in a contest." And to my suprise his reply was along the lines of, "oh... ok." Asking why he wasn't overly excited, he simply said something about it happening all the time. And I'm not over-exaggerating. They'd win the lotto (not the big money, mind you) regularly, sometimes twice in a month or two. I personally witnessed my friend entering and winning at least several contests. Off the top of my head I could site at least 5 examples.

Ok, so just wondering if the phenomenon exists elsewhere.
 
My grandparents, both now sadly long gone, were forever winning on the premium bonds. To the extent that the Postie had a 'special knock' he would use when there was an Ernie envelope.

Never the jackpot, mind. And it certainly doesn't seem to run in the family.

:)
 
There was a social-psychological study a couple of years ago which showed that "lucky" people actually looked for, and took, all the opportunities open to them. That is, they entered lots of contests, bought lots of raffle tickets etc. They were also generally optimistic people who believed that they would win, in contrast to people who believed they were "unlucky". These people hardly ever entered raffles, contests and so on, on the grounds that "I never win anything anyway", fulfilling their own gloomy expectations.
I had a period of a couple of years or so when I was entering every consumer contest going, and did win a number of small prizes on a regular basis.
As for Premium Bonds, I believe that if you hold £11,000 or more in Bonds (the maximum holding is £20,000) then you have an even chance of winning something every month.
 
I couldn't win an argument, and nor could any member of my family.

Although I did once win a Steeleye Span album at the local folk club.

Carole
 
Oh boy! Suspenders AND Steeleye Span.....
 
My family had a phase of having more than our fair share of luck.
For a while we "the family syndicate" won (usually a tenner not often much more) on the lottery every 2 weeks. The few weeks we didn't win someone we know who was in the house when the numbers were picked would win.
As a kid I would always enter school raffels (won most of the time, usually the big prizes. I generally don't bother much these days because luck isn't with me.


luce
 
Lucky Folk

I have an aunt who wins radio call-in contests and prize drawings all the time. In fact, the staff at the office of her favorite radio station knows her by name now. Sadly, she got all the luck alloted to our family. I've never once won one of those contests.
 
My sister went through a phase of buying lottery scratch cards and winning £25 every time , she said she only bought them if she knew she would win , I don't know how that could be explained .
Marion
 
I once impressed a GF when, in a pub raffle I insisted on the ticket that had the sail numer of my old boat. We left before the draw, but I later got a phone call (while the GF was still with me) to tell me I'd won!

I have in fact won a few prizes on this number, but nothing great. Any how, even if this was paranormal, it seems to have nothing to do with genetics!
 
The Romans & the Vikings & possibly other civilzations seemed to have an abstract idea that some people could be lucky, Leif Erickson who discovered Vineland (?America) was also known as Leif the Lucky.

The trouble seems to have been, that good luck for one could be bad luck for the rest, as in the ship sinks but only the lucky one survives & finds a fortune!!!!
 
Leif Erickson wasn't that lucky. How many people talk about him and his amazing discovery? My answer, not that many.


luce
 
Yes Luce!

But he did get there & back & got a saga written about him, what more do you want?

At least if you'er a Viking & a bloke?
 
In Britain luck runs in families, usually ones with the prefix Sir, Lord, or Earl.

BTW has anyone noticed that the number that has shown up in the lottery the fewest times is - 13?
 
I've always suspected that the lottery balls have different weights in them, so some of them are more likely to make it down the hole than others.

Just my humble opinion, mind.
 
Cursed:

Weighted lottery balls would be a big no-no and require a huge conspiracy...

Niles "Lucky Balls" Calder
 
I definitely believe in 'the more you enter, the more you win.' But I went through a phase where I decided to enter everything I could, and won nothing. Plus my friend would win contests you didn't have to enter, per se. Example: we had some special occasion at the dining hall at university. They had this thing where they baked a little figurine into some of the cakes, and the person who got that piece of cake won a small prize. And we were like, 'Oh, you *know* he's going to win.' And he did.

Oh, and some evidence to the contrary. My GF won (online) a scholarship for 10 thousand dollars. She'd never won anything notable before this. After the win she was all over the net trying to win more scholarships, but to no avail.
 
The only time I ever won anything decent was at a charity fundraiser I was working at.I was working as a D.J. at a dinner that was to put together by some people to raise money for a family as the mother was very ill with cancer,and this had caused them run into some financial hardships.
One of the organizers asked if I wanted to buy some raffle tickets.I thought fair enough and handed over me $10.
They had plenty of prizes and I was kind of hoping I might pick up a nice bottle of red or something.As luck would happen I actually won the major prize,a romantic weekend for two in the Blue Mountains.I just didn't feel right about taking it though as there had been some incredibly generous gestures made throughout the night,and here I was actually getting paid for being there.So I handed the prize back and they had a redraw.My wife was furious when I told her later.
 
After that little gaffe is there any chance of your DNA being passed on to a future generation?
 
The idea of selective breeding for luck was used by Larry Niven in his Sci-Fi novel Ringworld. The character Teela Brown was the result of several generations of "birthright lottery" winners (you have to win in order to be allowed to have children). Trouble was, her luck was extremely dangerous for her companions..

Good book, read it :)
 
I have an ex boyfriend who is exactly the opposite. He is the most unlucky person I have ever met. I don't mean that in a cruel way - it was abstract stuff he was unlucky with.

We're both roleplayers and thus probably use dice more than most people - his ability to roll dud numbers was way out of the statistical norm. It got to the point he'd get other people to roll dice for him and it'd work a few times, then we'd become "infected" and he'd have to get someone else to do it.

We tried once tossing coins just to see what happened - it took him over 100 goes to _get_the_call_heads_or_tails_right_.

He'd played quite a lot of lotteries competitions and stuff - he still did it whilst we were together as we used to find it kind of funny - he had never won anything.

The only time he ever bet on the Grand National, it didn't run.
 
DanJW said:
The idea of selective breeding for luck was used by Larry Niven in his Sci-Fi novel Ringworld. The character Teela Brown was the result of several generations of "birthright lottery" winners (you have to win in order to be allowed to have children). Trouble was, her luck was extremely dangerous for her companions
Click to expand...

He also wrote the short story "Safe at any speed" which was about what things would be like after the Teela Brown gene had spread throughout humanity... it's the reason he stopped writing Known Space stories...

Niles "Inconsistant Star" Calder
 
Hi

What are your thoughts on people who seem unnaturally "lucky"? My partner is one such person. He can be somewhat impulsive and has previously left several jobs without lining up another, only to have a much better job offer fall into his lap days after. He sold his flat in the depths of the recession (July 2010) yet the first person who saw it bought it at the asking price, which was considerably more than he'd bought it for at the height of the housing boom (2006). He regularly puts a couple of tickets on each lottery draw and most weeks he has a minor win. In fact, I can't remember the last time he actually put "new" money into buying tickets, he just uses the previous winnings.

Most recently, he received a nice payout from Halifax as part of their mortgage misinformation settlement. He has also been talking about quitting his job for several months and just as he was seriously thinking about putting in his resignation, the company sent round voluntary redundancy notices which should net him a nice payout if it's accepted. So is there such a thing as "luck", and why are some people more "lucky" than others? And seeing as this is the "it happened to me" thread, what "lucky" things have happened to you and yours?
 
Definitely some people are more lucky than others. I have a friend who can fall in s**t and come up smelling of roses. He wins on slot machines regularly, bets on horses a lot but always manages to have a green book (i.e. no matter what happens in the race he will profit), has also won fairly regularly on lotto tickets, and even won over £17k on his first time buying irish lotto tickets!!! We now call him the "captain of the lucky ship".
I rarely win anything.
But then I suppose there are different kinds of luck really. I might not win things but maybe I'll live a long and healthy life (so far I'm 45 and rarely seem to catch colds etc, and I've never had to go to hospital, except to visit people).
 
I wonder if luck is a little bit about how you see things, a kind of glass half full/empty mentality. For example, as a child, I was hit by a car, which could be seen as unlucky. However, the car was actually slowing down, so all it did was bump me off the road, I had a nasty bruise on my hip, but that was the extent of my injuries, which could equally be seen as lucky.
 
I think there are lucky people, because I am one of the UNlucky ones. I tried the glass half full/empty, but there is only so much bull you can be fed, before you accept that there is a force greater than yourself, dishing out the rewards. And, for reasons you don't understand, some people are getting more sweeties than you.

If you are one of the lucky ones, you will become more confident and be prepared to take risks, in the belief that "something will turn up". Since by chance, sometimes, something does turn up, you'll smile and start harping on about "fortune favouring the brave" and such baloney.

If, on the other hand, like ,me, you know that there is something out there determined to destroy anything good in your life, you can
1. Blame witchcraft, but that's so 1800's
2. Blame your parents, teachers or upbringing. Old hat. 1900's
3. Armour plate every choice you make, and watch in amazement as the great power in the sky, yet again, manages to find the one, tiny, little flaw in your great plan, and put you back on the starting block, while rewarding the knuckle scrappers of the world.
 
I used to work with someone who claimed that his Dad was one such person. He won something everytime he entered a compitition. it wasn't anything big, but for years he never lost. It all changed when a work mate of his walked up to him clapped him on the shoulder and said that he wanted some of his luck. After that he never won a penny.
 
If luck is down to chance then statistically I guess that some people are going to just have more luck in their lives than others. As there are 6.5 billion of us on the planet it's theoretically possible (I suppose) that someone somewhere could just by chance correctly predict (say) the outcome of say the next 20 England football matches. People might assume they were psychic but it could just be down to luck. Maybe precognition is just luck - and some have more of it than others (??)
 
I do wonder if luck attracts luck and bad luck begets more bad luck. If you have some good luck it maybe increases your confidence and you become more open to risk taking and trying new opportunities. I believe you make your own luck to an extent but I also know some 'naturally' lucky people and some very unlucky ones as well.
 
We have to differentiate between pure luck and intelligent pre guessing. For example, my brother has money to burn and years ago he put £100 into as many building societies as he could find. As they all turned into banks he received a handsome payout from each. Thats not lucky, thats foresight with the money to back it up.

If it is based upon pure luck then I have the negative of that! On saying that I did get 4 numbers on the lottery twice quite near each other. I do wonder whether state if mind affects 'luck'. The results of research indiicating that people who are psychic use both sides of the brain at the same time to utilize psychc powers appeas to me.
 
It seems that in our case, we are unlucky - but followed by the best luck within that bout of poor luck.

It`s hard to explain, but is a pattern that happens time and time again. People will say that we`re lucky, but it`s all luck following something really horrible, so I definitely do not consider it "good luck".

For example - being hit by a car, but miraculously suffering nothing more than a bruise... While the bicycle is completely destroyed. (Has happened to both my husband and I)

Developing some terrible illness - that spontaneously goes away before the doctors have a chance to treat it.

My son had the worst possible lot - but has the best possible outcome.

It`s very hard to call it "luck" as, obviously, we would be much better off if the initial bad thing never happened! I can`t really think of any time when we`ve ended up truly better off in the end. But it always seems to happen, without fail, so we have developed the attitude of "Things will sort themselves out" for life`s pitfalls.
To think about it, it is a pattern that goes very far back for both of us - so I am sure that sort of attitude must help in some cases. But others - like being hit by cars, best possible outcomes for illness/disorders, etc - don`t seem like they would be changed by attitudes toward life.
 
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