High-Stakes Politics: Luck of the Draw

High-Stakes Politics | BCBusiness

Whether you’re playing poker or voting, chances are you’re not truly in control.

Significant events are approaching. American voters will soon choose a president, and a new James Bond movie, Skyfall, is coming to theatres. It’s a good time to review the role of chance in human affairs. Whether it’s politics, poker or picking stocks, there’s a lot of luck at play. And like it or not, the most important factors are often the ones we can’t control at all.

Consider the Bond method of winning poker, as demonstrated in the 2006 film Casino Royale. When your opponents draw a flush, a full house and a higher full house respectively, you follow by drawing a straight flush for the win. Follow this simple rule and you can’t go wrong. (Note: first ensure that you are not playing against Bond himself, as he will likely follow your straight flush with a royal flush, then shoot you and steal your girlfriend.)

A recent study conducted at the University of Bremen and led by professor Gerhard Meyer suggests that the Bond method is indeed the surest way to victory. Meyer’s study involved 300 poker players playing 60 hands each. Players were divided into expert and more casual players. The results? No significant difference in the money won by each group (except that the experts were able to cut their losses more effectively when dealt bad hands). Professor Meyer’s conclusion: players overestimate the effects of skill in poker.

The prevalence of luck and random chance is a point that has been made in the fields of sports betting and stock picking, usually by hiring a chimp. (One day, investment advisers will band together and hunt chimpanzees to extinction for repeatedly making them look so bad.) Random chance can be hard to beat. Yes, there are savvy investors out there. People make big reputations on the basis of evidently shrewd bets they’ve placed. But taking the advice of a guy who bought Apple stock in 1995 would actually be pretty foolish – he was probably off his meds at the time.

At least it’s possible to argue that picking stocks or playing Texas Hold ’Em does indeed involve skill and your actions truly can affect the outcome in some cases. More depressing is video poker. Here, the player has only the persuasive illusion of control as a computer program decides it all.

Politics is like poker. Canadian elections offer us the opportunity to make a difference – in theory. We cast our votes, but only chance decides if they will count. If our candidate does win, there is no guarantee that policy changes will result, or that such changes will be to our liking. And when it comes to economic issues there is only a limited effect that our government’s policies, national or provincial, will have on global realities. But we can vote, at least. That’s something.

The quadrennial spectacle of an American presidential election is, for Canadians, like video poker: a game that keeps us spellbound and utterly helpless. The ideologies tend to be more extreme, the money committed is awe-inspiring and the stakes are exponentially higher. It’s the Show, the political big leagues. Canadians don’t see Clint Eastwood channelling the abusive rants of an invisible prime minister. No wonder we follow the U.S. campaigns closely and develop opinions as rabid as those that American voters express on domestic votes. We care, with good reason. For economic policy the U.S. election is as significant to us as the Canadian one. But for us it’s just video poker.

People still play video poker and roulette and craps and Keno. It’s entertaining, as long as you don’t lose your shirt. Likewise, Canadians will continue to be fascinated with U.S. politics, though we’re as powerless as punters plugging one-armed bandits. At least we know we’re irrelevant. Must be what keeps us so lovably humble.