"A certain man used to visit Monte Carlo year after year and was always successful in recovering the cost of his vacations. He firmly believed in a magic power over chance. Actually his experience is not surprising. Assuming that he started with ten times the ultimate gain,, the chances of success in any year are nearly 0.9. The probability of an unbroken sequence of ten successes is about...0.37. Thus continued success is by no means improbable. Moreover, _one_ failure would, of course, be blamed on an oversight or momentary indisposition." -- William Feller, _An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Appllications_, Vol. 1 (3rd ed.), p. 346, footnote 2

The world abounds in ways to be a little ahead most of the time. Swindlers on every scale, beginning with Mother Nature & proceeding thru people who make their living playing poker or lobbying Congress, are expert at distracting people from the consequences.