总有身边的人在我面前一边点头，一边信誓旦旦地说：“嗯嗯！新手运气一般都特别好！”

    受过基本概率论训练的人当然不会相信这种鬼话。不过一开始，我误以为产生这种幻觉是因为说话者一厢情愿，或是把自己的经历当成是真理散播。还好今天在 《The Black Swan》里读到了其本质原因（憎恶英文阅读的直接跳过去看后边）：

    There is a belief among gamblers that beginners are almost always lucky. "It gets worse later, but gamblers are always lucky when they start out," you hear. This statement is actually empirically true: researchers confirm that gamblers have lucky beginnings (the same applies to stock market speculators). Does this mean that each one of us should become a gambler for a while, take advantage of lady luck's friendliness to beginners, then stop?
    The answer is no. The same optical illusion prevails: those who start gambling will be either lucky or unlucky (given that the casino has the ad-vantage, a slightly greater number will be unlucky). The lucky ones, with the feeling of having been selected by destiny, will continue gambling; the others, discouraged, will stop and will not show up in the sample. They will probably take up, depending on their temperaments, bird-watching, Scrabble, piracy, or other pastimes. Those who continue gambling will remember having been lucky as beginners. The dropouts, by definition, will no longer be part of the surviving gamblers' community. This explains beginner's luck.

    也就是说，那些最终坚持下来的赌徒，一般都是第一次“尝到甜头”的人；而那些第一次就倒霉之极的，会倾向于根本不再玩儿了。这就是为什么赌徒大部分都有 “第一次很幸运的”美好记忆。

    由这个理论可以得出：如果赌场想显著增加利润，只要大大调高首次赌赢的几率即可（不过不能让刚入门的赌徒们知道）——这样就会有更多的人倾向于再赌，直到 把钱输光。当然，识别究竟谁是“处男赌徒”或“处女赌徒”难度比较大，需要科学技术支持。

    在beginner's luck的问题上，Diablo 2（《暗黑破坏神》，电脑游戏）就做得很好，因为其第一次杀Boss的装备掉率要比之后都高（这就是“bug杀boss大法”产生的原理）。当玩家第一次 杀掉Baal得到超好装备时，此玩家会倾向于反复地杀呀杀，以获得第一次那么丰厚的回报。这样就延长了游戏时间，增加了游戏吸引力。