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In 2012, a cat named Orlando won a year-long stock-picking challenge against investment professionals and finance students. Whilst the professionals used their decades of investment knowledge, Orlando chose his stocks by throwing his toy mouse onto a grid of numbers that related to different companies.
This contest highlights that many activities produce outcomes that are a mix of luck and skill. While in-depth knowledge of a certain subject and strategy helps, it’s sometimes hard to know what percentage of an outcome can be attributed to luck and how much to skill.
Skill Vs Luck
When something goes wrong in life, it’s easy to blame it on bad luck. When something goes right and produces a successful outcome, most people attribute it to hard work and skill. This is commonly referred to as the ‘’self-serving attribution bias.’’ We do this because it’s easier than admitting that skill was lacking in our losses and that luck played a part in our wins.
Michael Mauboussin discusses this in his book, The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing. He mentions that a higher level of skill does not eliminate luck but enhances its impact. He also highlights: When luck has little influence, a good process will always have a good outcome. When a measure of luck is involved, a good process will have a good outcome, but only over time.’’
Here is an overview of various activities rated on the luck/skill scale:
Roulette
Slot machines Stock investing Soccer Basketball Tennis Chess
|————————|———————————|—————|———–|—————|
Pure Luck Pure Skill
Skill Driven Activities
The outcome of a tennis or chess match is going to be determined by a player’s skill level. An absolute novice is not going to get lucky and beat a chess grand master. And a tennis beginner is not going to get lucky and beat Novak Djokovic. In these types of activities, players hit or play hundreds of moves in a game. Meaning they get lots of chances to use their skill, so the outcome most often favours the one with the better skillset.
Soccer players, on the other hand, take turns to run and play for goals. A few skilled players control the scoring, meaning more luck is added to the mix. With less chance to use their skill, a skilled team has a higher chance of losing than a professional chess or tennis player.
And sometimes a novice investor (or a house cat named Orlando) can get lucky and beat those with way more experience. Investing requires a mix of luck and skill, with skill making more of a difference in the long term. This is why successful investors, like Warren Buffett, have refined their investment processes over time for the best outcomes.
Luck Driven Activities
On the side of luck, you have gambling and different casino games. While players can use different strategies when playing games like roulette and blackjack, the majority of wins are driven by luck. Casino games were designed with a house edge, so, over time, the casino will win.
Similar activities, like choosing lottery numbers or playing slot machines, are also driven by luck. Even if you play a perfect video poker strategy, online slots use random number generators, so it’s impossible to affect or predict the outcome.
Poker, on the other hand, has a skill element and a luck element to the game.The best players use a mix of psychology, betting patterns and probability to improve their chances of winning. But how the cards fall is entirely down to chance.
Can Skill Overcome Luck?
A person’s skill and luck can make a difference in all types of activities. Professional poker players tend to win more than novices, but they are still affected by random card distribution. In the same way, a pro tennis player will win more often, but they are at the mercy of bad calls and injuries.
A study from the University of Nottingham supports the thought that skill-based activities reward expertise over time. In this study, 55% of professional poker players won hands, compared to 45% amateurs. This shows that more skill makes a difference, but luck still has an influence.
The Paradox of Skill
The paradox of skill relates to activities that involve skill and luck. As people involved in the activity improve their skill levels, the performance gap narrows. This results in luck having more of an effect on individual outcomes.
An example would be professional poker players at the top of their game. If both players have lots of skill and experience, they are unlikely to make silly mistakes. A lucky break may be what determines the outcome, making frequent wins more difficult.
Conclusion
If you can recognise where an activity lies on the luck Vs skill scale, this can help you to deal with uncertainty and improve performance. Furthermore, deliberate practice and dedicated hours to better a skill allow you to ‘make your own luck.’
Whether you want to be a chess grand master, play at Wimbledon, or win at poker, a degree of skill is needed to rise to the top. Mastery turns chance into certainty, allowing you to create success on your own terms.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
